Leonhart comments on Theists are wrong; is theism? - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Will_Newsome 20 January 2011 12:18AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (533)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Leonhart 20 January 2011 02:07:49PM *  0 points [-]

It seems to me that, if we insist on using simulation hypotheses as a model for theism, this has to be narrowed still further. Theism adds the constraint that though $deity is simulating us, no-one is simulating $deity; He's really really real and the buck stops with Him. We live in the floor just above reality's basement; isn't that nice.

I think that this might be what Eliezer's quote about "ontological distinctness" refers to, but I'm not sure.

Comment author: jimrandomh 20 January 2011 02:09:46PM *  1 point [-]

Monotheism requires that, but theism doesn't. And unless there are some universes that are for some reason impossible to simulate, Tegmark cosmology implies that there are no universes for which there are no universes simulating them. Is-God-of is a two-place predicate.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 20 January 2011 02:38:35PM 0 points [-]

If one were interested in salvaging the correspondence, one could argue that there's a chain of simulators-simulating-simulators and it's that chain (which extends down to "reality's basement") that theists label as a deity.

That said, I see no point in allowing ontology to get out ahead of epistemology in this area. Sure, maybe all this stuff is going on. Maybe it isn't. Unless these conjectures actually cash out somehow in terms of different expectations about observable phenomena, there seems little point to talking about them.

Comment author: Document 20 January 2011 02:22:28PM *  0 points [-]

Nitpick: Will isn't the only self-identified theist you'd have to convince of that.