= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
thrawnca comments on Guardians of the Truth - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (56)
If you believe in G-d then you believe in a being that can change reality just by willing it. So therefore you believe it's possible for consciousness to change/control existence.
So that could explain why Guardians fear too many non-believers: they feel threatened by what they perceive as the power of other people's consciousness. They fear that if there are too many non-believers that it might change the truth somehow.
But scientists (Seekers) know that reality is what it is regardless of what other people think, so they don't ascribe so much power to their fellow beings, and therefore don't feel as threatened by them.
OK, so by that definition...if you instead believe in a perfect rationalist that has achieved immortality, lived longer than we can meaningfully express, and now operates technology that is sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic, including being involved in the formation of planets, then - what label should you use instead of 'G-d'?
Khepri Prime, if the sequel to "Worm" goes the way I hope. More seriously, I don't believe any of that, and physics sadly appears to make some of it impossible even in the far future. Most of us would balk at that first word, "perfect," citing logical impossibility results and their relation to idealized induction. So your question makes you seem - let us say disconnected from the discussion. Would you happen to be assuming we reject theism because we see it as low status, and not because there aren't any gods?
"Would you happen to be assuming we reject theism..."
Some LWers reject theism because they see it as low status, some for better reasons, and some do not reject it.
I do have an opinion on your personal motivations as opposed to those of other LWers, but it would be obviously unproductive to give it. So it is also an unproductive question.
I'd probably have to invent a name for it. Or I might use the term "godlike being", implying that the being has some, but not all, characteristics in common with what people think of as God.
There's "demigod" or if you like the Eastern flavour, "bodhisattva".