Note: I think I remember reading somewhere a series of articles called “Indefensible Postion” where the author made fun, off the wall arguments. They were tounge in cheek but thought provoking. I can’t find them now, and they were so long ago I don’t know if I imagined them. Anyway, I’m going to take up the mantle in the same spirit for as long as it’s fun. I don’t necessarily believe or endorse any position I might take here, but am offering as a thought experiment.
Nick Bostrum came up with an interesting hypothesis here: Are You Living in a Simulation?.
Simply paraphrased, one of the following needs to be true:
The human race will never reach the point where it is capable of making a simulation indistinguishable from reality
Humans or post humans capable of such will have no interest in running historical simulations.
We are almost surely living in a simulation.
I discount #2. #1 is certainly possible. #3 would indicate that their would be lots and lots of historical simulations just like their are many copies of an individual video game, but there was only one history. Since you couldn’t tell the difference between the simulation and reality and there could be millions and millions of simulations but only one reality statistical analysis strongly suggests we are living in a simulation.
These simulations were created and are governed and run where everything in them is under the control of an all powerful and as far as the simulation goes an omnipotent entity. God.
So chew on that, atheists!
I would definitely buy a simulation that was indistinguishable from reality where I got to be rich and famous and lay on a beach and have sex with supermodels. So, if there is a player in our simulation, it’s likely to be somebody who is doing something really cool and exciting or fun. Those of us who do taxes and take out garbage and lead normal lives are the background NPCs.
This sounds suspiciously like the no true Scotsman fallacy. “Well sure I admit that you have a point and God exists, but he’s not what I expected him to be, so I am still right.”
You seem pretty blasé considering the fact I’ve just demonstrated that your life position is wrong and given you of God.
I think it’s pretty big news, but congrats on not being a sore loser. You seem to be taking it well.
The creator of a simulation is not equivalent to God. I’ve created plenty of simulations, but there are many things I can’t do within those simulations. In fact, in most cases, if I could, then I wouldn’t have needed the simulation to begin with.
I’m not sure you understand “statistical analysis.” By that logic, Obama is not President since there are millions and millions of other people in the U.S. and only one Obama.
Congratulations, the age old conundrum is solved. God can create a weight so heavy he can’t lift it.
You helped me solve that, so you get half the credit. It seems the act of creation necessitates the loss of omnipotence. Either that, or perhaps you are not a very good simulation creator ( no insult, just that you probably suck compared to an unimaginably advanced post human.)
If I don’t I’m in the wrong job. Your analogy is wrong. The correct one would be that you bought a lottery ticket, one of millions. What are the chances that you are holding the winning one?
I apply statistical analysis and say “hmmmm, millions to one.” Perhaps I don’t understand statistical analysis and their are subtleties here that are escaping me. I look forward to hearing them.
By that same token, if there are millions of historical simulations indistinguishable from reality to their inhabitants, and only one reality, then the same logic applies.
Unless you are implying that we somehow elected this reality real, which is about as meaningful as passing a law that says pi equals 3
But it’s not atheists who are assigning attributes to God - it’s theists. If a theist assigns certain attributes to God, I expect to see those attributes present when they try to show me that that God exists. If a theist tells me that God has attributes A, B, and C, and then shows me someone with attributes X, Y, and Z, it’s not me that’s moving the goalposts when I point out that what they’re showing me is not what they claimed existed.
Put another way: a Christian tells me that there is only one God, and Jesus is his son. I say that’s bullshit. If it later turns out that all of creation was actually built by an over-worked neckbeard in the basement of Google, the Christian is still wrong, and I’m still right.
I don’t follow the jump to “almost surely.” Maybe it’s entirely possible to create a sim, but we simply aren’t inside one. Lots and lots of others might be, but why does that imply that we “almost surely” are?
Every single one of our ancestors had sex and became parents. Therefore we, ourselves, “almost surely” have had sex and become parents. Except, nuh uh. The argument fails. You just can’t generalize that way.
I’ll accept that we can’t tell if we’re in a sim. It’s indistinguishable from reality, as a premise. Even more, there might be built-in rules preventing us from asking the right questions. There might be big gaping “blind spots” in front of us…which we can’t see. Blind spots work that way.
But at that point, we’re stuck with a big old-fashioned “So what?” What does this hypothesis offer us? What good does it do us?
For the sake of argument, I deny all of them in favor of this alternative. There will be simulations in the future, but most not complex enough to quite pass as the world we know. The few that are will be incredibly expensive and almost monopolistic in administration, and will not have resources put into making nested credible sub-simulations. So we have a 75% chance at best of being in such a simulation.
And that’s just as reasonable as any of the three you submitted.
If Hinduism is the real religion, then Christians were still wrong. If the claims made in Christianity are all utterly wrong because we live in a simulation, then Christianity is utterly wrong.
A simulation doesn’t mean there is a God. It means there is a controlling entity that is Himself subject to whatever physical laws exist in the actual universe He resides in.
So, I get that you think you’re being glib, but you’re utterly wrong and this thread is shitty.