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Overlap between Simulated Reality Hypothesis and Intelligent Design?

Shawn January 27, 2020 at 06:22 5000 views 16 comments
How much, would you say is there overlap between the simulated reality hypothesis and intelligent design?

Comments (16)

god must be atheist January 27, 2020 at 07:01 #376044
The first thing that pops to mind is that simulated reality must be started and created by an intelligent being, so the two are contingent upon each other.

But a little reflection can tell you that simulated reality can be started and created without a design by an intelligent being, and without a design at all. A machine, spontaneously generated, from a fortunate but seemingly random process of organization of appropriate materials into appropriate parts, could conceivably organize itself into a being capable of simulating reality.

That's what three billion atheists and materialists spread around the world these days think, anyway, what the very life of an animated being we live actually is: a mind capable of feelings and thought, having been created by inanimate matter which had no brain, no purpose, no agenda, no nuffin'.
TheMadFool January 27, 2020 at 07:56 #376058
Quoting Wallows
How much, would you say is there overlap between the simulated reality hypothesis and intelligent design?


While there's a similarity in the sense that both posit some kind of creator the difference between them lies in that in one, simulation, the real world is different, exists apart from the simulation itself and in the other, intelligent design, the world is real with no other reality since the creator-deity doesn't live in a different universe. Another difference is that in intelligent design there is the infinite regress of creators creating creators to deal with; in the simulation hypothesis there is no such problem as what is being posited isn't an infinite chain of simulations one creating the other but actually one very intelligent civilization running a large number of the same simulation.

god must be atheist January 27, 2020 at 08:39 #376066
Reply to TheMadFool
Isn't god supposed to be not of matter, and in a different plane of existence? Or something that is everywhere at all times? These would indicate that god lives in a different world from ours, and in deed the world could be a creation or a simulation, both allowing a god-creator in existence, in a different world.

In fact, there are theologies (please don't ask me to name them) which insist that the physical world is but part of god's mind and thought, nothing else.
TheMadFool January 27, 2020 at 09:41 #376077
Quoting god must be atheist
Isn't god supposed to be not of matter, and in a different plane of existence? Or something that is everywhere at all times? These would indicate that god lives in a different world from ours, and in deed the world could be a creation or a simulation, both allowing a god-creator in existence, in a different world.

In fact, there are theologies (please don't ask me to name them) which insist that the physical world is but part of god's mind and thought, nothing else.


Wittgenstein would've like us to remember his words: whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. I think if we heeded Wittgenstein, life would be very boring for it precludes any sort of imagination about the unknown. On the flip side, it would be a very confusing world in which everyone's, anyone's, opinion is legitimate. It's all speculation when we go beyond what our senses inform us.

Coming to the point, god is believed to be beyond time, space and matter, the only three things we're familiar with. Religions don't proffer another world for god as such. God simply exists and nowhere have I heard people claiming a world for god to inhabit.
god must be atheist January 27, 2020 at 09:51 #376079
Quoting TheMadFool
god is believed to be beyond time, space and matter


Please note: time is a part of our world. Space is a part of our world. Matter is in our world. Being beyond them, means not in the same place as these three things are in. Why would you object to something that is not in our world being in a different world? I think you are wrong in this argument, very much so. Illogical, and you proved it yourself. Just read your own words, and reflect over them for five minutes.
Qwex January 27, 2020 at 10:13 #376085
Why do we use the term God in intelligent design discussion and debate? It is a deviation of serious talk on the matter. Someone created the universe? To immediately characterize it as God is infantile.

Does the fact it is a simulation overlap with intelligent design?

Does the structure of the universe imply some thought-process?

Yes, I think it does.
TheMadFool January 27, 2020 at 11:19 #376096
Quoting god must be atheist
Please note: time is a part of our world. Space is a part of our world. Matter is in our world. Being beyond them, means not in the same place as these three things are in. Why would you object to something that is not in our world being in a different world? I think you are wrong in this argument, very much so. Illogical, and you proved it yourself. Just read your own words, and reflect over them for five minutes.


I'm not saying we can't imagine and invent our own theories about god's world but if you factor in god being immaterial, there is no necessity for a world for god to exist in at all.
god must be atheist January 27, 2020 at 11:29 #376097
Shawn January 27, 2020 at 15:36 #376138
Quoting TheMadFool
God simply exists and nowhere have I heard people claiming a world for god to inhabit.


Pantheism?
god must be atheist January 27, 2020 at 15:42 #376141
Quoting Wallows
Pantheism?


What you guessed would mean god dwells in this world; but he does not, according to @theMadFool: Because god is beyond time, beyond space, and beyond matter... that is, on the "other side", which is not this side, not this world. God's spacial, temporal and material existence excludes him from occupying space and happening in time in our spacial and temporal world. Which means he is in another world, so it can't be Pantheism, either.
Shawn January 27, 2020 at 15:43 #376144
Quoting god must be atheist
What you guessed would mean god dwells in this world; but he does not, according to theMadFool: Because god is beyond time, beyond space, and beyond matter... that is, on the "other side", which is not this side, not this world. God's spacial, temporal and material existence excludes him from occupying space and happening in time in our spacial and temporal world. Which means he is in another world, so it can't be Pantheism, either.


It must be pantheism.
Shawn January 27, 2020 at 15:44 #376145
Because of solipsism it must be pantheism.
god must be atheist January 27, 2020 at 15:50 #376148
Quoting Wallows
Because of solipsism it must be pantheism.



I don't think solipsism is a proven thing. It is a possibility, but we don't know its value of probability. It goes from near zero to near one, but there is no indication where in that range of probability of existence or truth solipsism falls.

So yes, if solipsism were true, you'd be right (Maybe. I am too lazy to think tthat through.) But since you can't rely on solipsism to be true for sure, you can't also rely on god being a pantheid.

Actually, no. Even in a complete and unadulterated soliptic state of affairs, god wouldn't be panthetic. I'm hungry now, but will revisit this after I eat.


Shawn January 27, 2020 at 15:58 #376156
Quoting god must be atheist
I don't think solipsism is a proven thing.


It's rather transcendental rather than provable.
TheMadFool January 27, 2020 at 16:25 #376160
Quoting Wallows
Because of solipsism it must be pantheism.


How?
Shawn January 27, 2020 at 16:26 #376162
Quoting TheMadFool
How?


If an entity becomes a solipsist, then isn't that tantamount to becoming a (lower-case-g)od?

With the caveat that this entity cannot prove to itself that it is god.