Jiro comments on Guardians of the Truth - Less Wrong

31 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 December 2007 06:44PM

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

Comments (56)

Sort By: Old

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

Comment author: Ian_C. 16 December 2007 03:49:18AM 6 points [-]

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.

Comment author: thrawnca 27 July 2016 01:45:53AM -1 points [-]

If you believe in G-d then you believe in a being that can change reality just by willing it

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'?

Comment author: Jiro 28 July 2016 03:44:49PM 0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Lumifer 28 July 2016 08:34:50PM 0 points [-]

There's "demigod" or if you like the Eastern flavour, "bodhisattva".