• neanderthal@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The only reasonably justification would for God to say: “I don’t have the ability to meddle. I’m not omnipotent. I did create your part of the multiverse. I can only set the laws of physics and initial conditions. Here’s how that works…Let me explain why you are here…something something multi dimensions…some creatures brains evolved quantum something something…which is what is commonly thought of as a soul…”

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So we’re some jackass’s experiment.

      The “god is a jackass” theorem. I like it.

    • neanderthal@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Even laws of physics are bound by logic…logic supercedes even me…so a lot of my adjustments were to things like the gravitational constant and force magnitudes

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      From the perspective of the simulation hypothesis, it’s possible that we exist not to exalt the programmer but to play out a given scenario that has no consideration of our well-being.

      Modern experimental paleontology will sometimes use computer simulations (simple ones compared to the one we might be in) to try to better examine behaviors and evolutionary development. In some of them, prey objects can detect and try to evade, fight or escape predators aware of the conflict of interest between themselves and their hunter. So we already have simulations in which both the coder and the observing party (not always the same group) do not have an interest in the well being of any given internal entity. It’s not that they’re evil, just that they’re here to see how it plays out, ultimately to get it to match what appears in the geological record, which means they have a model. Still, it sucks to be a virtual life form in this world that is very much made not to be paradise for us, and will be halted and shut down as soon as the end users have the data they need.

      Cosmic horror often examines the possibilities of a world created, but to which we are incidental or destined to an unhappy fate before we are consumed or discarded. The religions that are popular today are because we are opposed to such possibilities, not because benevolent deities are more likely than malevolent ones.

      But that is also a cosmic horror of its own, that we naked apes are going to be limited by a general tendency to deny data-driven models if their implications are too unpleasant. Even if Great Cthulhu or Sithrak, The Blind Sufferer, or even Azathoth, The Nuclear Chaos were the true architects of this world, humans would still look for a judge/redeemer like Jesus to follow, and the ministries would exploit that. We are only the bare minimum of socially evolved to develop agriculture, and industry.

      • jarfil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        From the perspective of the simulation hypothesis, it’s possible that we exist not to exalt the programmer but to play out a given scenario that has no consideration of our well-being.

        “And on the 8th day, He started to get bored, so He put a swimming pool, waited for some of His creations to get in, then removed the ladder. For the lulz” — possibly…

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      The philosopher and science fiction author Olaf Stapledon envisioned a god that was a creature creating universe after universe in order to make a mate. The mate had to be as aware as it is, so the whole universe has to be sentient. Our universe is just one in a long line of such universes and it isn’t the first or the last.

      I don’t know if he actually believed it (it’s the denouement of his novel The Star Maker), but the idea is intriguing.