[extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition...

[Damien Broderick]

At 02:50 PM 12/1/2004 -0800, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > "Simulation = deity" is nothing better than metaphysical
> > bait and switch. Why don't you address this critique, Mike?
>
>A simulation requires a simulator, and a simulator
>operator/programmer/architect. The first implies and insists upon the
>existence of the others. To say otherwise would be the real miracle. So
>you are insisting upon the existence of a simulation without a
>simulator or operator? Who is the one insisting upon the impossible now?

My typo. I meant, as must have been obvious: "Simulator = deity" is nothing 
better than metaphysical bait and switch.

In other words, if I paint a rainbow, there is no implication to be drawn 
that the *actual* rainbow-in-the-sky I'm representing is Painted by a 
Painter. If a simulator simulates a universe that we happen to be in, `God' 
(in the usual understanding) is whatever created the simulator's universe 
from nothingness, and ontologically sustains it. But actually there is no 
need to posit such a metaphysical entity, any more than a Rainbow Painter.

The simulation posit does have some interesting possible consequences, if 
we inhabit one, but none of them has anything to do with the god idea, 
which must apply to the *ground* universe. If the idea is incoherent and 
absurd in our simulated universe (as several of us have argued), it remains 
so in whatever universe gave rise to the simulator.

Now, why don't you address this critique, Mike?

Damien Broderick