Argument from possible simulation

[excreationist]

....So anyway... Why is ANY creator called "god"? But then again, if world-makers are gods, then what being with an "inner world" isn't a god?

I'm not just talking about any creator... I'm talking about the creators of our possible simulation... who could create it out of nothing... And they can be omnipotent and omniscient. And they have no physical body within the simulation - unless they have avatars...

The problem that I see with this, is simply that the word-choice of "god" is needless. It carries a lot of mythological baggage with it. IMV it's not necessary to take up 'theism-speak' to describe any of this.

If pantheism can involve a kind of god then I think a self-aware omniscient omnipotent intelligent creator should be able to be considered a god. Also note that Greek gods can have limited knowledge and power yet they are still called gods....

 

[excreationist]

....In fact while our universe is very large, there are still a finite number of states possible of it, as well.

But unlike MWI or SMB there is a near infinite number of starting states and rules for a simulation. Each simulation's starting state might be unique so it ends up with only one course of history so I don't think it is useful to be thinking about the possible states with those starting conditions.

It's still just the algorithm,

Roughly, algorithms involve very precise steps for solving problems (roughly). I think our simulation would involve Machine Learning where it learnt what to do and it but figures out the "how" for itself.
e.g. in Flight Simulator 2020 the AI looks at satellite images and then adds 3D models of trees and buildings in a plausible way if you get close enough.... this process isn't really an algorithm... unless you consider things like human intuition to be an algorithm....

 

[abaddon]

....So anyway... Why is ANY creator called "god"? But then again, if world-makers are gods, then what being with an "inner world" isn't a god?

I'm not just talking about any creator... I'm talking about the creators of our possible simulation... who could create it out of nothing... And they can be omnipotent and omniscient. And they have no physical body within the simulation - unless they have avatars...

Ok. I still haven't worked out why the creator(s) of a simulation need to be called gods or God.

Are you wanting to worship this simulation-creator? Or is it that a few games you've enjoyed used the word (so those games are a kind of esoteric "tradition" you're referring to)?

If pantheism can involve a kind of god then I think a self-aware omniscient omnipotent intelligent creator should be able to be considered a god. Also note that Greek gods can have limited knowledge and power yet they are still called gods....

Yeah, that's my point. If just anything's a god, then what special thing does it do for your powerful software engineer to designate him as a god? Is he worshipful, or a master that must be obeyed, or what?

 

[excreationist]

Ok. I still haven't worked out why the creator(s) of a simulation need to be called gods or God.

Then what is a better name for an intelligent creator of our universe who would be omnipotent and omniscient?

Are you wanting to worship this simulation-creator?

No

Or is it that a few games you've enjoyed used the word (so those games are a kind of esoteric "tradition" you're referring to)?

No it is based on stories about intelligent creators of universes being called gods....

Yeah, that's my point. If just anything's a god, then what special thing does it do for your powerful software engineer to designate him as a god? Is he worshipful, or a master that must be obeyed, or what?

They would be an omnipotent omniscient intelligent creator of a world....

 

[abaddon]

I just tend to associate "god" with something more than merely being a creator.

 

[excreationist]

I just tend to associate "god" with something more than merely being a creator.

I'm talking about the possible creator of our universe.... It would have self awareness and be capable of omnipotence and omniscience concerning this universe. Do you have a better word?

 

[abaddon]

No. Why would I? Better word for what? My brain needs something to be there before I name it. I'm not into creating stories with no story to them. The omni-being resides in what world? It does what (aside from create simulations)? Why's it so abstract as you present it? The other gods in other traditions have traits, intentions, etc... a replete mythology.

You can't define a being into existence. It should work the other way around, where you find the being and then decide on a name for it.

 

[excreationist]

BTW in most games there are a lot of limitations for the players but I think it is always possible to have "trainers" or mods which can allow the player to be invincible or have unlimited money or skip a mission or make it have a third person view or fly or teleport or spawn any game object, etc. That is related to the potential omnipotence of the creator...

 

[excreationist]

No. Why would I? Better word for what? My brain needs something to be there before I name it. I'm not into creating stories with no story to them. The omni-being resides in what world? It does what (aside from create simulations)? Why's it so abstract as you present it? The other gods in other traditions have traits, intentions, etc... a replete mythology.

You can't define a being into existence. It should work the other way around, where you find the being and then decide on a name for it.

Can you give an example of someone's belief in the creator of our universe that is self aware and omniscient and omnipotent that it isn't appropriate to call it a god? Do you think the term is sacred or something?
The omni-being interacts with the simulation but has an existence outside of it. Things that are more specific can't really be asserted...
If you must have a mythology see https://www.lifesplayer.com/bible.php

 

[Bomb#20]

3. The creator can be called 'God'.
Therefore it is likely there is a 'God'.

That's better. Giving something a label, doesn't make it something else.

I'm saying the creator of a simulation could be considered a god....

So should Alyson Hannigan.

Which one is the god?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn46yEv1j2o&ab_channel=GautierBERERA[/youtube]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn46yEv1j2o&ab_channel=GautierBERERA

 

[Bomb#20]

The information in a simulation is basically created out of nothing... the time in the simulation is created out of nothing.

How are you inferring that? The time in the simulation is created from the time in the simulation author's universe. The information in the simulation is created out of the information in the simulator author and the information in the machine the simulation is running on. Even if the simulation contains true-random bits, that information has to have been mined from true-random bits provided by the physics of the universe the simulation author lives in; the author has no ability to make the simulation create random information out of nothing if his universe doesn't provide the building blocks for it.

(For that matter, the simulation author probably has no ability even to know whether his own universe provides true-random building blocks. What measurement could you do on this world that would tell you whether apparently random processes like QM are true-random or just very good pseudo-random?)

The creator can be omnipotent and omniscient about the simulation. So I think the creator of the simulation could be considered a god.... I mean traditionally there are many gods that aren't omnipotent or omniscient or are a creator, etc. (like most Greek gods)
...
I thought within the simulation you could theoretically be omniscient, omnipotent, give people in it an afterlife, end the universe if you feel like it, etc. So within the simulation you are God.

Well, in the first place, you're making "God" a relational concept rather than an absolute one. To say somebody is a god from one point of view but a non-god from some other point of view is to be not talking about theism -- it's not as though Apollo was a god to humans but just some guy to Hera. In Greek mythology, Apollo was a god, full-stop. So why are you taking theists' word "god" and applying it to something else, instead of coining your own word?

And in the second place, I think you're redefining "omnipotent" and "omniscient" here. I'm omnipotent and omniscient within the simulation only in the meager, stripped-down sense that I can examine and change any bottom-level simulated physics element of the simulated world. That gives me no knowledge or power over what those elements mean within the context of that world. Sure, I can look into the simulated brain of simulated person 668 and observe that gate 1185926 has a 1 on its output; but that tells me exactly jack squat about, say, whether person 668 is praying to me or not. Building a simulation doesn't give me any special insight into the nature of consciousness or the workings of the algorithms that implement it.

To shift things back to theology in our world, let's say I'm a scientist in a higher-level universe and I created your universe and used my power over its physics to appear to Moses in the form of a burning bush. I made a lot of air molecules accelerate in an abnormal way to form sound waves aimed at him, and he made sound waves back at me, and I measured those waves with my complete knowledge of all the air molecules' positions and momenta, and I built a converter that turned the embodied information into a form I could perceive in my higher-level universe. Does that mean I have the power to engage in a conversation with Moses? Hardly -- I still don't speak a word of Hebrew! That's what you'd call "omnipotence and omniscience"?

 

[excreationist]

The information in a simulation is basically created out of nothing... the time in the simulation is created out of nothing.

How are you inferring that? The time in the simulation is created from the time in the simulation author's universe. The information in the simulation is created out of the information in the simulator author and the information in the machine the simulation is running on. Even if the simulation contains true-random bits, that information has to have been mined from true-random bits provided by the physics of the universe the simulation author lives in; the author has no ability to make the simulation create random information out of nothing if his universe doesn't provide the building blocks for it.

Excellent points... So I didn't think very deeply about that... this seems to be another difference between the creator of a simulation and the traditional idea of an eternally existing God that creates everything out of nothing.... my point was that I'm trying to say the simulation creation can involve god-like processes...

(For that matter, the simulation author probably has no ability even to know whether his own universe provides true-random building blocks. What measurement could you do on this world that would tell you whether apparently random processes like QM are true-random or just very good pseudo-random?)

Well with my theory of a non-obvious God nudges to intervene with the simulation involve tweaking apparent randomness... and apparent randomness is involved with possible guided evolution during the creation...

The creator can be omnipotent and omniscient about the simulation. So I think the creator of the simulation could be considered a god.... I mean traditionally there are many gods that aren't omnipotent or omniscient or are a creator, etc. (like most Greek gods)
...
I thought within the simulation you could theoretically be omniscient, omnipotent, give people in it an afterlife, end the universe if you feel like it, etc. So within the simulation you are God.

Well, in the first place, you're making "God" a relational concept rather than an absolute one. To say somebody is a god from one point of view but a non-god from some other point of view is to be not talking about theism -- it's not as though Apollo was a god to humans but just some guy to Hera. In Greek mythology, Apollo was a god, full-stop. So why are you taking theists' word "god" and applying it to something else, instead of coining your own word?

"god" isn't just a theist's word... it is also a deist's word and a panentheist's word and Greek mythology's word...

And in the second place, I think you're redefining "omnipotent" and "omniscient" here. I'm omnipotent and omniscient within the simulation only in the meager, stripped-down sense that I can examine and change any bottom-level simulated physics element of the simulated world.

No it is much more than that... for many examples see:

5 minutes in shows the Minecraft world having curvature inwards and then globe-like curvature... and this mod was just made by an ordinary person.

That gives me no knowledge or power over what those elements mean within the context of that world. Sure, I can look into the simulated brain of simulated person 668 and observe that gate 1185926 has a 1 on its output; but that tells me exactly jack squat about, say, whether person 668 is praying to me or not. Building a simulation doesn't give me any special insight into the nature of consciousness or the workings of the algorithms that implement it.

See post #29 where I'm saying that the simulation would be top-down not bottom-up. If it just had bottom-up physics then the 10⁵⁷ atoms of our Sun would be constantly being simulated.
Also see:
https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...-system-GPT-3-and-generating-images-from-text

To shift things back to theology in our world, let's say I'm a scientist in a higher-level universe and I created your universe and used my power over its physics to appear to Moses in the form of a burning bush. I made a lot of air molecules accelerate in an abnormal way to form sound waves aimed at him, and he made sound waves back at me, and I measured those waves with my complete knowledge of all the air molecules' positions and momenta, and I built a converter that turned the embodied information into a form I could perceive in my higher-level universe. Does that mean I have the power to engage in a conversation with Moses? Hardly -- I still don't speak a word of Hebrew! That's what you'd call "omnipotence and omniscience"?

Let's look at my theory about a non-obvious God:
https://www.lifesplayer.com/bible.php
It says that skeptics would explain this as a coincidence or hallucination.... with coincidence it would involve the particles moving based on apparent chance. I think typical cases of coincidence would just involve special songs playing on the radio, etc. I think the technique that the god would be more likely to use is hallucinations. And if this is a top-down simulation then it could involve intervention to the brain in a higher level way then this is converted to plausible lower level activity...
There is also the possibility of fraud involving magic tricks or technology...

 

[Swammerdami]

So, I have more than a little experience with the metaphysics and logic of "simulation".

Plainly put, there is no real difference between that which exists "as a simulation" or something that exists "on its own".

Really, "simulation" only has meaning when presented with a context, a set of things "around" the subject.

The universe is what it is, regardless of what context drives those relationships. It is simultaneously a simulation, and not-a-simulation, BECAUSE IT IS THE PRODUCT OF ALL EVENTUALITIES THAT PRODUCE IT!

It sounds like you might be advocating Tegmark's  Mathematical universe hypothesis.

the physical universe is not merely described by mathematics, but is ... a mathematical structure []. Mathematical existence equals physical existence, and all structures that exist mathematically exist physically as well. Observers, including humans, are "self-aware substructures (SASs)". In any mathematical structure complex enough to contain such substructures, they "will subjectively perceive themselves as existing in a physically 'real' world".

 

[fromderinside]

Mathematics is no more than human manipulation of symbols associated through human defined rules of counting. That the world can be represented in various aspects by mathematics is no more than human attempts to understand the world about her in terms over which she has control.

 

[excreationist]

Mathematics is no more than human manipulation of symbols associated through human defined rules of counting. That the world can be represented in various aspects by mathematics is no more than human attempts to understand the world about her in terms over which she has control.

I'd say it also involves patterns in a stable/coherent reality....

 

[skepticalbip]

Mathematics is no more than human manipulation of symbols associated through human defined rules of counting. That the world can be represented in various aspects by mathematics is no more than human attempts to understand the world about her in terms over which she has control.

I'd say it also involves patterns in a stable/coherent reality....

I gotta agree with fromderinside. Mathematics is only a tool that we invented that we use to understand those patterns. Its like we use a meter stick to understand the dimensions of an object but that does not mean that the object is made of meter sticks, or that it wouldn't exist if we had not thought up the idea of a meter as a standard of measurement.

 

[fromderinside]

Mathematics is no more than human manipulation of symbols associated through human defined rules of counting. That the world can be represented in various aspects by mathematics is no more than human attempts to understand the world about her in terms over which she has control.

I'd say it also involves patterns in a stable/coherent reality....

You are a human. You said the above.

Have you anything to add?

 

[excreationist]

Mathematics is no more than human manipulation of symbols associated through human defined rules of counting. That the world can be represented in various aspects by mathematics is no more than human attempts to understand the world about her in terms over which she has control.

I'd say it also involves patterns in a stable/coherent reality....

You are a human. You said the above.

Have you anything to add?

No that's the only thoughts I have on the topic at the moment.... well also that it might be similar even if we weren't humans.... e.g. if it involved AI/AGI that also manipulated symbols (partly based on its learnt "intuition")...
BTW in AI they talk about "pattern matching"... our brains can sense how strongly and in what way patterns match - associations can be triggered...

 

[Jarhyn]

Mathematics is no more than human manipulation of symbols associated through human defined rules of counting. That the world can be represented in various aspects by mathematics is no more than human attempts to understand the world about her in terms over which she has control.

I'd say it also involves patterns in a stable/coherent reality....

I gotta agree with fromderinside. Mathematics is only a tool that we invented that we use to understand those patterns. Its like we use a meter stick to understand the dimensions of an object but that does not mean that the object is made of meter sticks, or that it wouldn't exist if we had not thought up the idea of a meter as a standard of measurement.

You say that, but then I can point to an entire universe defined and designed and implemented by a mathematical algorithm, whose existence can be expressed by a single, albeit very large, number.

A universe can exist as and be expressed by a mathematical structure.

The biggest problem "argument from simulation" creates is that it still offers no useful argument to inform philosophy, ethics, or morality.

Of you want to point at simulation as being proof of a God, I can just point to a simulation that I created and both god of, and am a complete piece of shit to at the same time, and I can equally point to the fact that if I could have made a more high-fi simulation with more "real", less abstracted people in it, I probably would have.

 

[skepticalbip]

I gotta agree with fromderinside. Mathematics is only a tool that we invented that we use to understand those patterns. Its like we use a meter stick to understand the dimensions of an object but that does not mean that the object is made of meter sticks, or that it wouldn't exist if we had not thought up the idea of a meter as a standard of measurement.

You say that, but then I can point to an entire universe defined and designed and implemented by a mathematical algorithm, whose existence can be expressed by a single, albeit very large, number.

A universe can exist as and be expressed by a mathematical structure.

The biggest problem "argument from simulation" creates is that it still offers no useful argument to inform philosophy, ethics, or morality.

Of you want to point at simulation as being proof of a God, I can just point to a simulation that I created and both god of, and am a complete piece of shit to at the same time, and I can equally point to the fact that if I could have made a more high-fi simulation with more "real", less abstracted people in it, I probably would have.

We are obviously using very definitions for; universe, real, structure, etc.... So we aren't actually having a discussion. We are each talking about very different things.