[ExI] A science-religious experience

Thu Feb 20 20:10:05 UTC 2025

On Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 1:15 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 10:51 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 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.
>>
>
> Hi Jason,
> Lots of very interesting thoughts...
> But I don't buy this particular theodicy or justification for evil.  There
> are at least two types of computation/simulation, as illustrated in this
> image:
> [image: The-Strawberry-is-Red-0480-0310.jpg]
>
> Future gods could simulate everything with Abstract R type simulators
> which aren't like anything, so no suffering.
>

> Bottom line, any supper being running a phenomenal simulation full of
> evils like we experienced with WW II, while hiding from the phenomenally
> suffering beings, would be devils who we should fight against and overcome,
> showing them better abstract ways to do simulation searches for
> phenomenally suffering beings.
>

If it is possible to simulate consciousness minds in full detail without
invoking their consciousness, then I agree.

But if philosophical zombies are not logically possible, then this is a
feat no god can do.

Jason

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