[extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition...

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> 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?

The failure in your critique is that you are asserting that the only
party which can validly claim the title 'god' is the creator (or lack
thereof) of the root universe that creates the first ancestor
simulations. I refuse to accept such a narrow definition.

If a simulator operator creates a simulation, and controls its
existence to whatever degree chosen, he is, for all intents and
purposes, the 'god' of that simulation and to the evolved inhabitants
of that simulation. I think an error of perception here is that you are
assuming that we are dealing with a pod people situation where the guy
I am talking about just happens to not be in a pod but is no different
from the other brains in vats.

I'm not positing a pod person situation. Inhabitants of simulations may
or may not have a post-simulation existence, but primarily are
creatures of the simulation in their entirety. The simulations we are
talking about are quantum computational programs run in pocket
universes made to order by a post-singularity civilization. Nothing so
crude as a Matrix scenario. The simulations I speak of have a lot more
to do with Permutation City.

=====
Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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