SaidAchmiz comments on Beyond the Reach of God - Less Wrong

66 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 October 2008 03:42PM

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Comment author: SaidAchmiz 06 July 2013 05:58:49PM 2 points [-]

A number of your conditionals are false.

To elaborate, if God exists then consciousness depends on having an immaterial soul.

This is totally out of nowhere. What has God's existence have to do with what consciousness does or does not depend on? They seem to be entirely logically independent. (This one has already been handled by hwc.)

If consciousness depends on an immaterial soul, then simulated entities can never truly be conscious.

False again, because there's no a priori reason why simulated entities can't have an immaterial soul. (For instance, if God exists and is omnipotent, then by definition he could cause it to be the case that (some or all) simulated entities have immaterial souls.)

If the simulated entities aren't really conscious they are incapable of suffering

And false a third time, because it assumes that suffering depends on consciousness. A number of e.g. animal rights proponents deny this.