David Mathews

Hello Everyone,

Consider the following experiment:

Supposing you were to create a Universe in your computer and filled it with essentially intelligent beings possessing free will and self awareness:

1. Would you not be the God of that Universe which you created?

2. From the standpoint of the beings in the computer, would you not be eternal, omniscient and omnipotent?

3. From the standpoint of the beings in the computer, would not the Universe be seamless and therefore they would not have any direct access to their creator, either to observe, perceive or verify your existence?

4. From the standpoint of the beings in the computer: If they were to deny the existence of a Creator, would that mean that in fact you really do not exist?

5. From the standpoint of the beings in the computer: Isn't it true that you could modify their reality without their perception, either changing their individual properties or the properties of their Universe without their having any means of detecting these changes?

6. Supposing you were to reveal yourself to some of those computer-based lifeforms, don't you imagine that your description of the three-dimensional physical world would be incomprehensible to meaningless to them?

7. Supposing you were to modify their universe in a manner in which they might perceive, wouldn't the citizens of that computer based universe consider such acts either miracles or magic?

8. Those computer based lifeforms who observed these acts by yourself might not interpret them as acts of the creator. They might seek some sort of "natural" explanation within their own universe which would explain it without the activity of the Creator. Yes or No?

9. If the citizens of your universe decided to that they did not want, need or believe in the Creator, as the Creator you would not have any means of changing their mind without destroying their personality, character, individuality and free will. Yes or No?

10. If somehow you transported one of those computer-based lifeforms into your own universe, wouldn't they interpret this universe as some sort of vision or mystical experience?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these matters.

Thanks,

David Mathews
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1" target="_blank">David Mathews' Home Page</a>

Mageth

The question is, what does all that have to do with reality?

deank

This depends on your definition of God. There are quite a few on this earth.

You would seem like God, but the being in the computer would be wrong because we are not omniscient or omnipotent. Does that mean Christians could possibly be wrong about God?

This is an interesting point but it makes the creation of this litte universe a little bit like pissing in the wind. What's the point?

If they denied the Creator's existance, they could be wrong.

It would be possible, but I don't think that would fit in with the Christian God's everunchanging nature. Is that bordering on deceit?

Yes, the spiritual world is incomprehensible and meaningless. And rather nonexistant as well.

Yes.

Assuming God exists is not natural, so it is likely that they would find a way to explain the phenomenon.

That is correct.

If it were possible, they would not consider it "natural."

These are nice ideas but they fail as a whole because the "computer" universe is simply a derivative of the "real" universe (with which you should become more acquainted). All assumptions as to a person being a God, in the traditional sense, are wrong, and the experiment is a waste of time. If I did create a small universe and took the care to never be noticed, why should I expect to be noticed? And if I handed some of them my "word" describing how they should live, and they failed to follow it because (duh) I didn't make myself accessible, would I torment their virtual souls for all eternity?

Probably not, since I have more compassion for life than the Christian God does, and certainly more reason.

-Dean

emphryio

Without understanding your motive, you are unaware of any biases in your thinking. If you are unaware of any biases, you can believe anything. (And the more intelligent you are, the more unlikely and fantastic things you can make up to believe in.)

Brian63

Just for the [non-existent] hell of it, I'll respond to just the prime-numbered questions. I may get to the composite numbered questions (and the first question) in a later post, or not.



I don't see why. They would have no way of knowing that I am incapable of dying or not existing, or that I am all-knowing or all-powerful.



Unless I allowed myself to intervene in their activities. But then how would they know that I am, in fact, intervening?



Probably.



Or they may perceive it as laws of their universe that they just have not discovered until that moment. How would they know that they came as a result of "divine" intervention, as opposed to just a previously-unknown "naturalistic" force?

Brian

daemon

Interesting questions, Mr. Mathews...

You could call yourself that, I suppose.
Not enough context to determine an answer, but probably not. One might know how to find out anything about the sim-universe, but knowing the precise state of it is easily beyond the capabilities of any human, so omniscience would be inaccurate. Omnipotence is effectively available to some degree, depending upon the design of the interface, though true omnipotence would be a stupid thing to allow any user, even the creator. Eternal... no. The simulation could outlive you.
Again, not enough information. The simulation could be seamless or not, and interface between any user and the simulation could easily be designed in. For example, a unique simulation-law defying artifact could be created at any point within the simulation.
Actually, this depends on the design of the entities within the simulation. If it were not possible for them to state anything that was not factual, then if they stated a creator did not exist, then the creator could not have existed.
In some cases yes. In some, no. Not enough context to determine anything further.
No, I have no reason to assume that.
Not enough information to determine an answer.
Not enough information. It is potential that such entities would be unable to do so.
Depends upon your definition of "destroy." It would change their personality, chararacter, and individuality, but all experiences of entities change these to some degree.
Not enough information.

While the questions are interesting, without an actual design, many of these questions are unanswerable.

Ryanfire

All those lifeforms would need is the code (programming) to alter their being, and their reality.

They will eventually become the god that created them.

Naturalism is our code, reality our environment.

Just as the dna sequence is code, humans have learned it. Once again David, don't underestimate humans. The potential is definately there.

Humans *can* learn the code and environment, but they must spend the time and effort to do so.

I know many of the people in the world are afraid of this.

Either rid the world of fear, or forever live in fear.

davidm

These are good questions. I raised the same point in a couple of different threads, but was disappointed to receive no responses. I'm glad the issue has been resurrected, so to say.

Self-replicating digital entities evolving over many (computer) generations have already been created, and some programmers have likened their development to a kind of digital Darwinian evolution. Suppose such entities could develop self-awareness? Their programmer/creator could occasionally intervene in their evolution, tweaking code to achieve some purpose. The programmer could also feed them information that the digital entities might liken to scriptural revelation. I had said that we might expect to find two competing schools of philosophy emerging in this realm: Metaphysical Analogism vs. Metaphysical Digitalism. The latter would maintain that the whole of reality was digital, and suppositions of an analog realm (read: supernatural) were superfluous and incoherent. But the school of Metaphysical Analogism would be correct in this case.

What does it all mean? Probably not much. It does show, though, a way in which a world could be, that could accommodate two different realms of reality, involving a creator in one realm and his creations in another. It shows that the concept is not incoherent, as many naturalists have argued. Having said that, though, the analogy fails to correspond with the Christian God. Note that the creator in the case of the computer is fully naturalistic, and, for all we know, could be a terrible person. His creations might have better morals than he does! So this analogy does nothing to sustain the Christian God, which remains unverifiable but, more importantly, logically inconsistent. The programmer/creator is, by contrast, logically consistent.

Koyaanisqatsi

All right. I'll bite.

Ok.

Trivially so, I suppose.

Yes, you would not.

No, you would not.

Sorry, just having fun with your poor grammar. Why would I be "eternal, omnisicient and omnipotent" to the beings in the computer? How would they know I existed at all?

I think you left off a crucial point, which is that I somehow was able to inform them of my existence in some manner.

It will be exceedingly interesting to see how you think it would be possible to do that, by the way, condsidering the given.

Or "know of" for that matter. Unless, of course, I programmed that knowledge directly into them, in which case I would have violated free will, since ultimately their "belief" in me would simply be the result of a triggering of dormant programming.

...that they cannot verify exists or even have any way of knowing whether such a concept is even an objective truth let alone a viable possibility...

Of course not, but that's a trivial and pointless observation if I can only prove my existence to myself; if I'm the only one capable of proving my existence as well as the only one capable of understanding and accepting that proof.

Why would these beings care at all of my possible existence if my existence can only be affirmed by myself for myself?

Not without violating free will.

Why would it? I made them intelligent enough to have free will, which necessarily means I made them intelligent enough to be capable of determining what is "true" and what is "not true" in order for them to make arguably the most important decision of their entire lives; whether or not I actually exist, which, in turn, must mean that they are capable of comprehending me.

Not if I informed them of what I was doing and why I was doing it.

There is a bizarre underhandedness hidden behind these questions that I, in turn, question you about. You are implying that all of these changes and alterations are somehow necessary to be done in either secret or in a manner that is deliberately incomprehensible to them.

They're my programs, which means I can program them to fully comprehend every single thing I'm doing.

I assume I love and cherish them, yes? So why wouldn't I fully inform them of what I am and what they are and what I'm doing "behind the scenes" as it were, to make their lives/programs better?

I am, after all, the programmer, which means I can very easily program in "comprehension," yes; in fact I must program in "comprehension" in order for them to have free will.

Without the ability to fully comprehend what I am and what they are and what that all means, there is no possible way they can be said to have free will.

So, they're capable of observing my actions--the ones I'm doing "behind the scenes"?

Why would I allow them to do that, if as you imply, my actions must necessarily remain so mysterious?

I guess you'd have to ask them, now wouldn't you?

Assuming that these beings somehow intuited my existence, no I could not reprogram their minds without violating free will, but that wouldn't prevent me at all from simply revealing to them all exactly what I am and what they are; you know, the way preachers all claim the Bible does?

Why would they? Did I initially program them to be ignorant fools?

And I would look forward to you clearing up all of the logical inconsistencies in your own questions.

It will be an interesting experiment of my own to see if you are capable of picking them out and correcting them or not.

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

RogerLeeCooke

If you are trying to prove the logical possibility of a creator, I grant that at the outset. Most of your points, however, show that the creator's existence is undecidable by its creatures. 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.