Re: Alltheism was RE: The Simulation Argument again

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Jun 05 2003 - 19:44:09 MDT

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    Dan Fabulich wrote:
    > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
    >
    >> If you define "God" as an entity which pervades all areas of all
    >> Level IV Processes,
    >
    > "Level IV Processes" is not easily Googled. Care to give a hint?

    Sorry, sometimes I start thinking everyone hangs out on SL4... Tegmark,
    "Parallel Worlds". Tegmark's Level I is simple distance in an infinite
    open universe; Tegmark Level II is other inflationary bubbles; Tegmark
    Level III is many-worlds theory; Tegmark Level IV is the Platonic
    existence of all possible worlds, which I've taken to calling "Processes".

    Our own Process is named "Bayesia".

    > Certainly if you think "God" (according to this definition) exists in
    > some hubblebubble or other, you should think "God" exists in all
    > hubblebubbles. Similarly for all Everett world-histories. And, you
    > know, similarly for all possible worlds.

    Then it follows that if "God" does not exist in any possible world (Level
    IV Process), "God" does not exist in any world. So I'd say fairly
    obviously "God" does not exist, since anyone can sketch out mathematically
    consistent cellular automata in which there is provably no "God". But
    this says nothing interesting in the argument against theism. If there
    were an entity with command over the entire Process of Bayesia, existing
    at the root level of the enclosing reality with no comparable entities
    nearby (i.e., not a Corbinian Otaku), with interestingly posthuman yet
    basically nice motives, who intervened from time to time in our world to
    create miracles, atheism would be disproven. Playing with definitions to
    avoid the blow would be cheating. This is what makes atheism falsifiable.

    -- 
    Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
    Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
    


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