From: Dan Fabulich (dfabulich@warpmail.net)
Date: Thu Jun 05 2003 - 22:09:24 MDT
Mike Lorrey wrote:
> I'd have to dispute this. Posit that I am Posthuman entity Aleph born
> and living in universe A (Sim1). I design and launch Sim(2) in Universe
> B (Sim2). To the denizens of Universe B (Sim2), I am GOD (irrespective
> of whether or not they worship accurate renditions of Me and My POWER).
> To my cat I am nothing but the food delivery man. To girlfriend A I am
> little more than a schtupping post that mows the lawn. To the God of
> Universe A (Sim1), who lives in Universe A-1 (Sim0), I am a mere speck
> of quantum probability acting as a semi-intelligent autonomous entity
> at least some of the time with delusions of godhood.
>
> Ergo, your argument is invalid.
First off, it's not exactly "my" argument; Plantinga thought it up on the
basis of Anselm's "argument" (which is so bad that there's a large body of
literature of people just trying to figure out what it says).
Secondly, it's all good and well to criticize the definition of "God" used
in Plantiga's argument. Like I say, I encourage you not to remove the
scare quotes from Plantinga's "God". This is an extremely tricky
definition, not to be swallowed whole, or, perhaps, at all.
With that said, I think your response is best put as saying: "You have
misidentified the definition of 'god.' Getting to be a 'god' is as easy as
launching a rich SimX universe." But that's a far cry from showing the
argument to be invalid.
To see this, let's not trust that Plantinga's definition of "God" is true
of whatever (if anything) we, in ordinary conversation, call God; let's
say that we define X to be the entity, if there is any, with maximal
greatness. Such as it is, it's therefore "necessary," existing in all
possible worlds, or in none.
Hence, if you think there's a possible world in which there's X, you
should think that X is in our actual world as well. If you think there's
a possible world in which there's no X, you should think that X isn't in
any possible worlds, say nothing of our own. If you think that there's a
possible world in which there's X and another possible world in which
there's no X, you believe a contradiction.
The argument is VALID, but it remains to be seen whether it shows anything
interesting, about, say, "gods" in the ordinary sense. Certainly, if
there were an X, I'd be comfortable calling X a God, but maybe there are
other things that I'd call a God which aren't X... you list some good
candidates. With that said, even if I would agree with you that rulers
over rich simulated universes are gods, I would STILL think that either X
is in all possible worlds or there are no Xs at all.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jun 05 2003 - 22:19:38 MDT