From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu Apr 03 2003 - 20:32:26 MST
At 02:24 PM 4/3/03 -0500, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>An example of inconsistency is the assertion that God predates all physics
>and existence, yet contains complex dynamic structure, and behaves in an
>anthropomorphic fashion, showing emotions that are the signature of
>sustained natural selection in a game-theoretical context.
Quite so. Yet this does not preclude *demiurges*, especially the kind I've
speculated upon elsewhere as products of a very fast evolutionary process
near the Big Bang. Such near-gods would perhaps be almost ubiquitous and
co-extensive with the physical universe, but would have evolved
consciousness via sustained natural selection in a game-theoretical
context. (This notion is central to my forthcoming novel, written with Rory
Barnes, THE HUNGER OF TIME.)
Of course they/It would not be anthropomorphic, but most religions don't
invoke anthropomorphic deities--many cultures propose theriomorphic or
geomorphic primordial `divine' agencies.
Damien Broderick
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