John_Baez comments on The Least Convenient Possible World - Less Wrong

165 Post author: Yvain 14 March 2009 02:11AM

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Comment author: Sebastian_Hagen 15 March 2009 05:01:40PM *  2 points [-]

When you meet a god, how can you be sure it's not a hallucination?

Assuming the entity in question is cooperative, try this:

Ask it if P=NP is true, and for a proof for its answer to that in a form that you can easily understand. There's three possible outcomes:

  • It doesn't comply. Time to get suspicious about its claims to godhood.
  • It hands you a correct proof, beautifully elegant and easy to grasp.
  • It hands you a lump of nonsense, which your mind is too damaged to distinguish from a proof.

If you get something that appears like an elegant proof, memorize it and recheck it every now and then. If your mind is sufficiently malfunctioning that it can't distinguish an elegant proof for P=NP from something that isn't, you may not be able to notice that from inside. There's still a chance whatever is afflicting you will get better over time; hence, do periodic rechecks, and pay particular attention to any nagging doubts about the proof you get while performing those.

In the meantime, interpret the fact that you've gotten an apparent proof as significant evidence for the entity in question being real and very powerful.

Comment author: John_Baez 03 May 2010 12:03:38AM 6 points [-]

Or: it says "This is undecidable in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory plus the axiom of choice". In the case of P=NP, I might believe it

Ask again, with another famously unsolved math problem. Repeat until it stops saying that or you run out of problems you know.

I would not believe a purported god if it said all 9 remaining Clay math prize problems are undecidable.

Comment author: Tasky 23 September 2011 10:52:49PM 0 points [-]

If it really is undecidable, God must be able to prove that.

However, I think an easier way to establish whether something is just your hallucination or a real (divine) being is asking them about something you couldn't possibly know about and then check if it's true.