[ExI] A science-religious experience

Thu Feb 20 16:40:44 UTC 2025

On Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 10:43 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.

Good and evil derive ultimately from subjective states of consciousness,
which makes their objective characterization and comparison difficult:

"For these words of Good, evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with
relation to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and
absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and evill, to be taken from the
nature of the objects themselves; but from the Person of the man or, From
the Person that representeth it;"
-- Thomas Hobbes in “Leviathan” (1651)

"We have already observed, that moral distinctions depend entirely on
certain peculiar sentiments of pain and pleasure, and that whatever mental
quality in ourselves or others gives us a satisfaction, by the survey or
reflection, is of course virtuous; as every thing of this nature, that
gives uneasiness, is vicious."
-- David Hume in “A Treatise of Human Nature” (1739)

"It there appeared that we could not, on reflection, maintain anything to
be intrinsically and ultimately good, except in so far as it entered into
relation to consciousness of some kind and rendered good and desirable: and
thus that the only ultimate Good, or End in itself, must be Goodness or
Excellence of Conscious Life."
-- Henry Sidgwick in “The Methods of Ethics” (1874)

But I think it is still possible to give an objective definition of what
constitutes evil, as the previous examples suggest.

Further, although uncomputable in practice, for a god-like mind there is a
way to define morality objectively:

https://youtu.be/Yy3SKed25eM

Jason

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._______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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