[ExI] A science-religious experience

[efc at disroot.org]

On Thu, 20 Feb 2025, Keith Henson wrote:

> The meta-level question is why humans have religions at all.
>
> I think I know, but it is almost impossible for most people to understand.
>
> Humans seem to have a bias against too much insight.

Evolutionary advantage at the dawn of time?

> Keith
>
> On Thu, Feb 20, 2025 at 7:43 AM efc--- via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 19 Feb 2025, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 12:05 PM BillK via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>       On Wed, 19 Feb 2025 at 16:32, Darin Sunley via extropy-chat
>>>       <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>      >
>>>      > " This offers a solution to the problem of evil. Infinite computational gods can't destroy or change what is out there
>>>       already, but they can provide continuation paths (afterlives) for those beings after they cease to exist in their
>>>       universe."
>>>      >
>>>      > This is the most elegant argument for deism I've ever heard.
>>>      >
>>>      > On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 6:10 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>      >> Computational capacity provides only the power to explore and create (or rather, rediscover what already is in the
>>>       infinite reality). Computational capacity doesn't enable one to destroy other universes which already are.
>>>      >>
>>>      >> This offers a solution to the problem of evil. Infinite computational gods can't destroy or change what is out there
>>>       already, but they can provide continuation paths (afterlives) for those beings after they cease to exist in their
>>>       universe.
>>>      >>
>>>      >> Jason
>>>      >> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>>
>>>       Yes, but it's a pity that Gods don't exist.
>>>       It’s a divine evasion for the gods. ‘Don’t hold us accountable for
>>>       engineering suffering in the first place! We’ll compensate by granting
>>>       you paradise once you’re dead.’ What a generous bargain!
>>>
>>>
>>> What can complicate these discussions is that there are two kinds of things here, each of which has variously been called "god" by
>>> different religions in different contexts:
>>>
>>> 1. All of Reality (e.g. Nirguna Brahman, Divine Ground of Being, God the Father) - that which is responsible for the existence of all
>>> universes (e.g., the set of all program executions existing in arithmetical truth)
>>> 2. The Great Programmer(s) (e.g. Saguna Brahman, Demigods, Personal Gods, The Simulators, God the Son) - are omnipotent over their
>>> creations (e.g. their computer simulations over which the programmer has complete access and control)
>>>
>>> It's been said that the material universe is where God has lost control:
>>>
>>> "Matter is the border of the universal mind of the universal person that the universal (Turing) machine can't avoid to bet on when
>>> looking inward and intuiting the gap between proofs and truth.
>>> This entails two processes: the emanation of God into Souls and Matter, and the conversion of the Souls, using Matter to come back to
>>> God (which is a sort of universal soul attractor)."
>>> -- Bruno Marchal
>>>
>>> So if you are looking for who to blame for evil, it would be the "type 1" God which you can equate with all of reality -- a reality
>>> that is infinite and comprehensive, and necessitates that all possible universes exist. There is much evidence for this type of
>>> reality, it can be proven constructively by anyone who presumes arithmetical truths like "2+2=4" exist independently of the minds who
>>> think them or material particles that instantiate them.
>>>
>>> Type "type 2" personal gods have their own will and discretion regarding what universes to simulate, how to engineer afterlives,
>>> which beings to save, etc. But they can no more override what exists in all of reality, any more than they could delete the fact that
>>> 2+2=4.
>>>
>>> You could poetically say God's omnipotence doesn't override his omniscience. There is no power to forget for a mind that knows
>>> everything, including the knowledge of what it is like to be any of the beings that suffer or experience evil. Moreover, for the type
>>> 2 gods to find the beings to save, they must still simulate the universes where bad things happen. You, in your current state (as
>>> well as everyone in our future lightcone) wouldn't exist if WW2 didn't happen, we either would never have been born or would have a
>>> brain with different memories. So would it be better for WW2 to have never happened, if it meant the non-existence of everyone who
>>> now lives, and and will live in the future of the history of life on earth? Remember the set of all universes contains all possible
>>> histories of the multiverse, so the people in the WW2-happened-branch exist along with the WW2-never-happened-branch. The naive
>>> approach to addressing the problem of evil is to prevent bad things from happening, but note that in so doing, requires wiping out
>>> all the inhabitants of any universe-branch where something unfortunate happened. Does the goodness of all those people in that
>>> universe outweigh that one unfortunate thing to be avoided? The question becomes more complicated under the light of the true cost of
>>> correcting an evil.
>>>
>>> Jason
>>
>> Another way is to deny the existence of objective email, and affirm our
>> opinion about events. Sometimes our opinions align, sometimes the opinions
>> of the majority align, sometimes the opinion changes. At the end of the
>> day, we have particles, which is not something you can read "evil" into._______________________________________________
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>