this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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There’s no hypocrisy here.
On one hand, the belief in a god doesn’t just end there. There are beliefs in what that god does and what he has control over. So it’s completely logical to believe that there’s no god (although, as someone else pointed out, it’s also not random arrangements of atoms).
On the other hand, simulation theory is a logical theory to rationalize the “purpose” of why we exist. It’s not a belief. The simulation doesn’t respond to prayers or requests. It’s simply conjecture or hypothesis to explain the “why” of the universe. No one who talks about simulation theory (much less who “believes” in it) pretends that the creator of the simulation is uniquely interested in them and responds to their requests and tells them how to live their life. In fact, that would go against the entire concept of simulation theory.
Religion and religious belief have specific definitions. This feels just as dishonest as people claiming that LGBTQ ideology is a religion or that evolution is a “belief”.
You're assuming belief in the Abrahamic God to make your argument easier. But not all theists subscribe to such a position. And belief in a disinterested god who created the universe seems just as plausible as believing in a disinterested programmer who wrote a simulation.
Those conjectures aren't just equally plausible, they're the same thing.
I think their point is belief versus theory. One requires faith, the other thought.
It's why it's simulation theory and not Simulationism. People acknowledge it, but don't follow it, nor believe it, since belief requires clearing unknown gaps with leaps of faith to reach an unknown destination. Theory seeks answers of the unknown with "could be this, could not be this" whereas belief is "it be this".
This always points back to the paradox which all divinity falls into. The moment we know of a god to be real, it is old news and no longer divine. The next scientific step is "What made it so?" and moves right along to bigger things whether theists are on board or not.
Of the few words ending with -ism and -ist in science or theory, none have belief or faith.
Even the most apparent, such as the Big Bang Theory, are still marked a theory, after all. Believing in them—convinction without 100% knowledge—is foolish and closes doors of what may actually be truth.
What an amazing belief. We believe that a something we know nothing about maybe did something that we have no evidence for.
I’m not assuming anything. The image shown in the OP is an image of the god of Abraham and the initial premise is wrong. If there was a sizeable population of theists who believed in a disinterested god, we’d have somewhere to start a discussion.
I don't know what you'd consider "sizable" but a lot of people these days are spiritual without being religious. Which is unsurprising. Atheism/agnosticism are on the rise, so it makes sense that people who believe in a god but don't subscribe to a particular religion are also on the rise.
People who believe in a god but aren’t part of a religion would have to dictate the parameters for their god in order for it to be meaningful in any way. As stated before, the OP didn’t make the initial idea that nebulous. They were pretty specific.
Of course it's a belief. Any position held as fact in the absence of evidence is a belief, and is irrational by definition.
It also absolutely does not provide an explanation of "purpose". Someone else already wrote a good comment about why that is.
Even more importantly: God is omnipotent, which means they don’t make mistakes. A simulation doesn’t imply a higher power that is perfect in every way.
Actually, no - the dictionary definition of omnipotent is literally being able to do anything. God being faultless is a different thing entirely and depending on how you interpret scripture, that is a false statement. He regrets making humans, so you could argue he sees humans as his own mistake - which is an entirely different kind of fucked-up for another day’s topic.
So whomever is running the simulation would be omnipotent, because they are literally making whatever happens in our universe happen by running a simulation of a universe.
EDIT: meant “everything” instead of “anything” but fuck it
“able to do anything”
I’m all set up right there, thanks.
It'll be a new day in 30 minutes. Can you continue this thread?
How can a programmer or simulation operator have a mistake?
Great point. For all we know, we’re a simulation created by ancestors who are just as imperfect as we are.
Now see. I think simulation theory is one of the possible explanations for our existence. But, I would disagree that it gives any credence to a purpose to our existence.
It also doesn't really answer the core question of how things began, it just defers them upwards to another civilisation. Unless you want to say it's simulations all the way down, there needs to be be a root real existence somewhere and there the origins pose the same questions.
I've not yet heard any explanation as to how our universe came to be that I truly believe. All explanations are problematic. But even if simulation theory were true, I'd still be bugged by the fact that we still don't get any closer to the answer of how it all began. It just explains how the universe as we know it exists.
It does bring up the interesting conundrum: is there one "base" universe? Then how did that start? Makes no sense. Is it turtles all the way down? That also doesn't make any sense. And yet those are the only 2 possibilities (assuming a few intuitive things about logic and reality, which is a whole 'nother thing...).
I completely agree that's what this basically boils down too. ST was an interesting concept I read about once and only briefly recalled twice since. Nothing more. This could be a valid criticism of individuals putting more stock into the idea but for anyone else it's a reach.
The belief system built around God affects me every single day of my life. I have family that are hardcore Christians that pester me about it regularly. Approximately half of the political ideologies being pushed in my country center around Christian dogma.
Honorable mentions: Foreign and domestic terrorism threat and future wars being incited.
What is religion, if not conjecture about the origin of mankind (and by extension the universe) that people believe without evidence?
I don't think that religion is predicated on the answering of prayers, or in a Creator who takes a special interest in some particular human.
Also, I don't think that either of those go against simulation theory; what if you're a sim in some alien version of The Sims, and they're going around fuckin with your life, removing ladders from your pools, etc.
Religion identifies the simulator and insists that its intermediaries can offer a liaison between you and them, and also that if you don't believe in their particular simulator, you will be punished. It has been used for centuries to control the populace and to take their money.
A proponent of simulation theory isn't likely to tell you that it solves any philosophical problems, or that they now understand the universe wholly. I've never heard anyone talking about it claim that they know who/what is behind the simulation.
So IMO the distinction between the two couldn't be more clear.
I imagine there's at least a couple wacko groups out of there trying to twist simulation theory into a purely religious endeavor, but that wouldn't represent the mainstream conversation about it.
What is the purpose of such a simulation if ST is "correct"?
Check out Ancestral simulation In a nutshell, it says that humans are living in far future and we are just a simulation from scratch so that they can study their origin, how they come to be etc
That is outside of our scope of vision and equally as unknowable as the true purpose of God.
I like the other answer betta no offence 🎅
The purpose is to observe our behavior and how we react to stimuli. And it’s not that it’s “correct”, it’s just that it requires no intervention. If it’s “real”, then it was started by an outside force and is being observed like a Petri dish amongst other simulations.
Do "they" ever intervene or do you think its strictly regulated, like double-blind or whatever?
Like do you think they actually do or can pick favorites (protagonists/main characters) or is it way more sterile?
If it’s truly meant as a simulation, then intervening in any way would go against the purpose of the simulation.
Just think about how we run our simulations. We give the computer parameters about the “real” world because we’re interested in the results. If our entire world is a simulation, amongst other simulations, then intervening would ruin the simulation.
Checkpointing interesting points in simulations and rerunning with modified parameters happens literally all the time
Especially weather / climate / geology and medicine
They’re re-run, though. You don’t change the parameters in the middle of the simulation. That goes against the point of simulating something.
You don't rerun everything from scratch. Especially weather simulations can be checkpointed at places you have high certainty, and keep running forks after that point with different parameters. This is extremely common with for example trying to predict wind patterns during forest fires, you simulate multiple branches of possible developments in wind direction, humidity, temperature, etc. If the parameters you test don't cover every scenario that is plausible you might sometimes engineer it into the simulation just to see the worst case scenario, for example.
And in medicine, especially computational biochemistry you modify damn near everything
You’re confusing simulations of specific events with a simulation environment. If our universe is simulated, then it’s unlikely that the creators of the simulation would be interested in the individual occurrences you’re describing. The universe is what’s being studied, not the happenings inside of it.
Simulations of boats in water don't care about what's happening to the water much of the time yet it needs to be there, you seem to be way too confident in your conclusions
How do you know? What if the guy running the simulation actually monitors what we think and reacts to it? What if the personally decides to give people cancer or cure it? What if he copies our minds to simulation of hell after we die? What if 2000 years ago he copied himself into the simulation to get crucified?