Comment author:Jon2
25 January 2009 06:45:20PM
5 points
[-]
I can certainly understand your dissatisfaction with medieval depictions of heaven. However, your description of fun theory reminds me of the Garden of Eden. i.e. in Genesis 1-2, God basically says:
"I've created the two of you, perfectly suited for one another physically and emotionally, although the differences will be a world to explore in itself. You're immortal and I've placed you in a beautiful garden, but now I'm going to tell you to go out and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over all living things; meaning build, create, procreate, invent, explore, and enjoy what I've created, which by the way is really really big and awesome. I'll always be here beside you, and you'll learn to live in perfect communion with me, for I have made you in my own image to love the process of creation as I do. But if you ever decide that you don't want that, and that you want to go it alone, rejecting my presence and very existence, then there's this fruit you can take and eat. But don't do it, because if you do, you will surely die."
It seems that the point of disagreement is that your utopia doesn't have an apple. The basic argument of theodicy is that Eden with the apple is better than Eden sans apple. To the extent that free will is good, a utopia must have an escape option.
Or, to put it another way, obedience to the good is a virtue. Obedience to the good without the physical possibility evil is a farce.
It's easy to look around and say, "How could a good God create THIS." But the real question is, "How could a good God create a world in which there is a non-zero probability of THIS."
Comment author:tygorton
19 May 2012 09:02:34AM
*
1 point
[-]
This logic assumes that a beyond human intelligence in a redesigned world would still find inherent value in free will. Isn't it possible that such an intelligence would move beyond the need to experience pain in order to comprehend the value of pleasure?
According to the bible, god created different aspects of the world across six days and after each creation he "saw that it was good". Yet nothing ELSE existed. If there had never been a "world" before, and evil had not yet been unleashed, by what method was this god able to measure that his creation was good? One must assume that god's superior intelligence simply KNEW it to be good and had no need to measure it against something "bad" in order to know it. Couldn't the eventual result of AI be the attainment of the same ability... the ability to KNOW pleasure without the existence of its opposite?
Isn't the hope (or should I say fun?) of considering the potential of AI that such a vast intelligence would move life BEYOND the anchors to which we now find ourselves locked? If AI is simply going to be filled with the same needs and methods of measuring "happiness" as we currently deal with, what is the point of hoping for it at all?
This is a bit of an afterthought, but even at our current level of intelligence, humans have no way of knowing if we would value pleasure if pain did not exist. Pain does now and has always existed. "Evil" (or what we perceive as evil) has existed since the dawn of recorded human existence. How can we assume that we are not already capable of recognizing pleasure as pleasure and good as good without their opposites to compare them to? We have never had the opportunity to try.
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I can certainly understand your dissatisfaction with medieval depictions of heaven. However, your description of fun theory reminds me of the Garden of Eden. i.e. in Genesis 1-2, God basically says:
"I've created the two of you, perfectly suited for one another physically and emotionally, although the differences will be a world to explore in itself. You're immortal and I've placed you in a beautiful garden, but now I'm going to tell you to go out and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over all living things; meaning build, create, procreate, invent, explore, and enjoy what I've created, which by the way is really really big and awesome. I'll always be here beside you, and you'll learn to live in perfect communion with me, for I have made you in my own image to love the process of creation as I do. But if you ever decide that you don't want that, and that you want to go it alone, rejecting my presence and very existence, then there's this fruit you can take and eat. But don't do it, because if you do, you will surely die."
It seems that the point of disagreement is that your utopia doesn't have an apple. The basic argument of theodicy is that Eden with the apple is better than Eden sans apple. To the extent that free will is good, a utopia must have an escape option.
Or, to put it another way, obedience to the good is a virtue. Obedience to the good without the physical possibility evil is a farce.
It's easy to look around and say, "How could a good God create THIS." But the real question is, "How could a good God create a world in which there is a non-zero probability of THIS."
This logic assumes that a beyond human intelligence in a redesigned world would still find inherent value in free will. Isn't it possible that such an intelligence would move beyond the need to experience pain in order to comprehend the value of pleasure?
According to the bible, god created different aspects of the world across six days and after each creation he "saw that it was good". Yet nothing ELSE existed. If there had never been a "world" before, and evil had not yet been unleashed, by what method was this god able to measure that his creation was good? One must assume that god's superior intelligence simply KNEW it to be good and had no need to measure it against something "bad" in order to know it. Couldn't the eventual result of AI be the attainment of the same ability... the ability to KNOW pleasure without the existence of its opposite?
Isn't the hope (or should I say fun?) of considering the potential of AI that such a vast intelligence would move life BEYOND the anchors to which we now find ourselves locked? If AI is simply going to be filled with the same needs and methods of measuring "happiness" as we currently deal with, what is the point of hoping for it at all?
This is a bit of an afterthought, but even at our current level of intelligence, humans have no way of knowing if we would value pleasure if pain did not exist. Pain does now and has always existed. "Evil" (or what we perceive as evil) has existed since the dawn of recorded human existence. How can we assume that we are not already capable of recognizing pleasure as pleasure and good as good without their opposites to compare them to? We have never had the opportunity to try.