Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Dontaskme
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Post by Dontaskme »

Astro Cat wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:18 pm The supposition "for anything, in order for it to exist, its opposite must also exist" is easily false.
Just out of curiosity, how would the supposed claim "for anything, in order for it to exist, its opposite must also exist" be known as easily false? already knowing that a belief is usually known as the acceptance that something exists or is true?
seeds
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Post by seeds »

Astro Cat wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 7:46 pm
seeds wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 5:54 am And if you don't think that the illustration implies something amazing regarding our potential destiny, then you just don't understand what the illustration is proposing, for it proposes that we have each been imbued with the same powers and abilities as the Creator of this universe.
Indeed, I'm going to need some kind of explanation to go along with the illustration to get anything out of it, please.
Okay, looking at it once again...

Image

...it is simply the most "natural" and "organic" (life-imbued) way I could think of to visualize what I believe is the truth of the universe.

The illustration suggest that the universe is the fully-fruitioned reality of a singular incorporeal mind whose self-aware agent - in the context of its eternal life in a higher dimension of reality and wakefulness - has made it to the heights of control over its own mental holography to the point where it was able to replicate itself by creating the "seeds" of itself (us humans) within itself.

Easy-peasy! :D

It even comes with the implication that our own Creator herself may have begun in the same way as us, as a seed from an alternate universe deep in the past, thus providing a more "natural" parallel to the Big Bang theory...

Image

The blurry captions read as follows:
GOD: "You must have a logical purpose that does not diminish when viewed in the light of the eternal perspective. Though it may be difficult to fathom, it is as simple as this: You are my children and you will become like me. Believe it for it is so. That is life's ultimate truth and it is ours to share together forever."
Seed (quoting a metaphysical prophecy): "...In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished..." (Revelation, 10:7)
Indeed, it even suggests the existence of an infinite multiverse. Except in this case, the universes are created via purposeful design and intelligence, as opposed to the ridiculous notion of being products of chance.

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seeds
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Post by seeds »

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Astro Cat wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 2:36 am If I grant the premise that people need to suffer to become prepared for an afterlife (and I do not grant this premise, but if I did), then aren’t there ways to do this that give everyone a fair chance to develop themselves in preparation for the afterlife?
As I tried to make clear in one of my earlier posts, the allowing of suffering is not some sort of "preparation" for the afterlife, no, it is to help instill doubt as to whether or not God and an afterlife actually exist.

And, again, the reason for that is to ensure that we remain focused on our temporal "job" in this universe. And that "job" is to bring-forth new souls into existence via the human reproductive system in a context of reality that makes sense to us (i.e., seems "natural" and "logical" to us).

And the "trick" to ensuring that this context of reality will indeed seem natural and logical to us is dependent on the fact that we humans have been "designed" to function at a low enough (attenuated) level of consciousness that does not allow us to realize just how strange this world truly is, as is depicted in another one of my illustrations...

Image

Again, there is nothing we need to do to "prepare" ourselves for the afterlife, for just as none of us had any choice in our initial birth and awakening into existence on this spinning orb, flying through the ether of space,...

...likewise, we have no choice in the second and greater awakening we will experience at the moment of death.

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seeds
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Post by seeds »

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Astro Cat wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 2:36 am You yourself believe there is an afterlife of sorts: do people suffer there?
Well, first of all (as mentioned earlier), I believe that we humans are of the same species of being as God, and that the universe is not only God's mind (think Berkeley), but is also her "cosmic womb" in which she is able to conceive her own offspring (us),...

Image

Furthermore, I also believe that death (in whatever form we may individually experience it) is nothing more than the metaphorical equivalent of a "final contraction and push" that will deliver our souls (our minds/consciousnesses) out of God's universe and into a higher context of reality where God and our true and eternal form will finally be revealed to us.

In which case, if there is indeed some sort of suffering that awaits us after undergoing such a profound transformation, then I guess we'll find out post death.

However, In the meantime, to better understand where I'm coming from, I suggest that you not only try to empty your head of all the anthropomorphic nonsense handed down to us from the world's religions, but you must also try to re-adjust your thinking when it comes to what the word "people" means, for even the Bible says...
"...we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye..."
...hence the implications of the "seed" metaphor in my flagship illustration.
seeds wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:33 am ...humans have discovered - via quantum mechanics - that so-called "reality" isn't quite as "real" as once thought, for it seems to be composed of an infinitely malleable, informationally-based substance that is capable of becoming pretty much anything "imaginable" (similar to the substance from which our dreams are created).
Astro Cat wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 2:36 am As a physics masters myself, soon PhD, I’m not sure what you mean by these things you’re talking about: reality is still real. There are a lot of mystical ideas about QM that are really a form of pseudoscience.
Am I catching a whiff of disdain and condescension in that last statement?

Judging from these conversations, combined with the fact that you love Tolkien fantasy, you don't strike me as being one of those stiff and closed-minded "...shut up and calculate..." types (though you may have to feign such a thing in order to acquire your PhD :wink:).

Now I'm pretty sure that you've heard these quotes before, however, if it's "pseudoscience" for a few of the founding fathers of modern physics and cosmology to make the following statements...
"The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter... we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter." — James Jeans
"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter." — Max Planck
“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” — Werner Heisenberg
...then, apparently, there is good reason for something other than hardcore materialism to explain the deepest mysteries of reality.

For example, the "measurement problem" for one, and whether or not the three-dimensional features of the universe could even take form if consciousness was not present in some form in order to collapse the wave function.

And, no, decoherence does not resolve that issue.

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seeds
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Post by seeds »

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Astro Cat wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 2:36 am In summation though, I’m incredulous that God’s hiddenness is such a good thing that it’s “worth it” to have innocent victims and child leukemia and all the heinous, grotesque, awful stuff we see in the world.

If there is a soul-building theodicy I could MAYBE find it more intuitive to have a system where people only suffer as a result of their own choices (to learn from them), but not suffer due to random chance or because violence by others was rendered possible as a deliberate divine choice.
All I can say is that if there truly does exist a living Creator of the unfathomable order of the billions of galaxies of this universe, then this Being would no doubt be as far above us in scope, intelligence, and consciousness as we humans are above amoebas.

In which case, don't you think that such a Being would have examined all of the options of how to best set up the conditions that will best serve the purpose of awakening its familial offspring (us) into existence?

Now I realize that this is one of those trite and standard proposals, but do you really want to try and second-guess the methods and motives of a living Being who is intelligent enough to form the essence of its own mind into a setting from which its very own progeny could then effloresce from the very fabric of the setting itself?

Clearly, I have blathered on long enough. Back to you.
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

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Dontaskme wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 8:49 pm
Astro Cat wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:18 pm The supposition "for anything, in order for it to exist, its opposite must also exist" is easily false.
Just out of curiosity, how would the supposed claim "for anything, in order for it to exist, its opposite must also exist" be known as easily false? already knowing that a belief is usually known as the acceptance that something exists or is true?
It's trivial to be able to show that supposition is false. "For anything, in order for it to exist, its opposite must also exist."

You can do this with thought experiment: if you removed all photons from the universe such that only darkness was left, there is no logical contradiction. So it's possible to have darkness without light existing. Likewise, if you created a new universe and bathed it uniformly in light so there was no darkness, there is no logical contradiction. So it's possible to have light exist without darkness.

The idea that for anything to exist that has an opposite, that its opposite must also exist, is trivially false. There are of course opposites of scale (meaning something like softness vs. hardness, where it is difficult to distinguish where one begins and the other ends), that is a different sort of issue because if you got rid of everything considered "hard" then the far ends of the "soft" scale would be the new "hard." So, let's not get confused by opposites of "scale."

But binary opposites, things like "a thing or its absense" (like light and darkness, sound and silence, etc.), it is trivially false that one has to exist in order for the other to exist.
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Post by bahman »

Astro Cat wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 4:01 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 8:49 pm
Astro Cat wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:18 pm The supposition "for anything, in order for it to exist, its opposite must also exist" is easily false.
Just out of curiosity, how would the supposed claim "for anything, in order for it to exist, its opposite must also exist" be known as easily false? already knowing that a belief is usually known as the acceptance that something exists or is true?
It's trivial to be able to show that supposition is false. "For anything, in order for it to exist, its opposite must also exist."

You can do this with thought experiment: if you removed all photons from the universe such that only darkness was left, there is no logical contradiction. So it's possible to have darkness without light existing. Likewise, if you created a new universe and bathed it uniformly in light so there was no darkness, there is no logical contradiction. So it's possible to have light exist without darkness.

The idea that for anything to exist that has an opposite, that its opposite must also exist, is trivially false. There are of course opposites of scale (meaning something like softness vs. hardness, where it is difficult to distinguish where one begins and the other ends), that is a different sort of issue because if you got rid of everything considered "hard" then the far ends of the "soft" scale would be the new "hard." So, let's not get confused by opposites of "scale."

But binary opposites, things like "a thing or its absense" (like light and darkness, sound and silence, etc.), it is trivially false that one has to exist in order for the other to exist.
Darkness is the absence of light not the opposite of light.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Post by Dontaskme »

Astro Cat wrote: Mon Feb 06, 2023 4:01 pm It's trivial to be able to show that supposition is false. "For anything, in order for it to exist, its opposite must also exist."

You can do this with thought experiment: if you removed all photons from the universe such that only darkness was left, there is no logical contradiction. So it's possible to have darkness without light existing. Likewise, if you created a new universe and bathed it uniformly in light so there was no darkness, there is no logical contradiction. So it's possible to have light exist without darkness.
Yes, but to know a dark only universe, yes, you would have to remove all the photons. So the photons would have to have been included in the 'experiment' the photons had to exist so that they could be removed in order to create the dark only universe. So surely light and dark have to exist simultaneously in the same instance of knowing this 'thought experiment' ?

And vice versa.. a new universe bathed uniformly in light so there was no darkness, would require a darkness removed in order to know a light only universe?

We are talking about concepts known here aren't we?

Light and Dark are both concepts known right? ...So both these concepts known have to each play a part in the 'thought experiement' ..right? both having to exist simultaneously if the 'thought experiment' is to make any sense? ..true or false?
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Post by attofishpi »

Astro Cat wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 6:54 am I often find when presenting a Problem of Evil (henceforth PoE) style argument that a common response is some kind of "greater good" theodicy, e.g., that perhaps God allows suffering because it's necessary to enable some sort of greater good. Analogies are usually drawn to enduring the brief pain of an inoculation for the greater good of boosting the immune system, for instance.

The PoE-giver might respond with something like, "well, what possible greater good could there be for something like child leukemia, or any other form of egregious suffering?" This is usually when the theodicy I'm interested in comes out: the theist might say, "well, as we are mere humans and can't presume to know the mind of God, all that we can know is that God has a good reason to allow child leukemia such that it isn't incongruent with God's benevolence to allow it."

I think that this line of theodicy is problematic in that it's invincible, and feels very similar to special pleading. It's a kind of trap that -- once accepted -- might never be un-accepted because God could literally do anything at that point, even kicking puppies in the street and laughing maniacally while they fly, and the excuse could still be made: "Maybe He has an unknowable reason for this such that it's good, even though it appears evil."

We can construct an analogy if we get all of the same pieces that make up this theodicy: all we need is something smarter than us to cause suffering in some way and then the same excuse can be made. But I'll get to that in a moment. First I need to discuss toy worlds (as hinted in the title) because first we must answer the question of what suffering God is even accused of being culpable for.

I submit that it's possible for an omnipotent and omniscient being to have created a universe where the physics simply doesn't allow for the existence of physical suffering while preserving free will (to pre-empt another common theodicy). An omnipotent and omniscient being should be able to make physics such that everything from natural disasters to debilitating genetic disorders to gunshot wounds to stubbed toes is physically impossible. It's easy to imagine, too; particularly if you've ever used a cheat code in a video game: if physics incapable of harming people can be simulated, it's certainly the case that an omnipotent being could actualize it and an omniscient being could conceptualize it. I will borrow Swinburne's term "toy world" for such a category of world (where physical suffering isn't possible because the physics don't allow it).

It follows that if an omnipotent and omniscient being created a universe wherein physical suffering is plentiful -- if we look out and we see a world ravaged by heinous amounts of suffering, grotesque possibilities that are able to be actualized, privation, starvation, disease, violence, and so on, all of it preventable if there were simply different physics -- it follows that if the world is that way instead of otherwise, then it has to be because the omnipotent/omniscient being deliberately chose it to be that way. God is culpable for *all* physical suffering, in other words: every last bit of it; even in instances where He didn't pull the proverbial trigger, He had to have set the laws of the universe in such a way that it was possible to happen (and deliberately so: there is no such thing as unforeseen consequences to an omniscient and omnipotent being; it is always "a feature, not a bug" with such beings).

The question the PoE-giver is asking in this instance is, "if God is omnipotent and omniscient, then He is culpable for the existence of physical suffering in the world." The theist may give the greater good theodicy by responding, "well, maybe God had a good reason for building the universe with physical suffering." The PoE-giver may ask, "ok, what reason?" The theodicy-giver responds, "well, since we are mere humans, we can't know. It's beyond us to know."

And there it is: the problem. It smells so much like special pleading, and as I've mentioned above, it's an invincible line of argument. God could do anything at all and the excuse would still work: God could torture babies and laugh maniacally and there still may be some reason so inscrutable for why it's actually good and not evil that maybe we can't know it.

Is it reasonable to reject a line of argument that's invincible in order to avoid such a trap? Can we reasonably use the evidence of observation -- "this appears incongruent with benevolence" -- and rationally affirm that maybe the being perpetrating whatever act is actually not benevolent? I think that it is. It is true that we're epistemically limited, and technically true that any apparent perception might be false for unknowable reasons beyond our limitation: but it's epistemological chaos to embrace this excuse as a crutch, isn't it? At that point wouldn't we have to throw up our arms and say that anything we think is true might actually be false because we're epistemically limited and there might just be some unknowable reason why we're wrong about it? Isn't this exactly what we see in special pleading fallacy?

This brings us back to the analogy I wanted to build.

Suppose that you have a pocket dimension that is a toy world: in this universe, people have free will, but the physics of the universe do not allow for suffering. There is no disease, no privation of resources. If someone tries to stab someone else, the knife loses all inertia (or something, there are any number of ways to build physics without suffering). People still have free will, however: they are able to decide what to do on a given day, whom to spend it with, whether to write a book or watch a film or engage in sports or whatever.

Now, say there is an alien creature with immense technological power that is truly far more intelligent than humans: it's not just that their civilization has existed longer to research technology longer, it's that they are truly simply mentally superior to humans in that they're able to conceive of things that humans can't even begin to comprehend, even if the creature attempts to teach humans from the ground up.

Let's say this alien creature uses technology to slide into our toy world pocket dimension and sees that there is no suffering, everyone is bustling about their days just enjoying themselves. "Oh, this won't do at all," the alien says.

The alien gathers people in the town square and announces that she is much smarter than they are (and is able to prove it, too), and that she is benevolent and wants to give everyone a very important gift. She builds a particle accelerator that changes the vacuum state of the pocket universe (or whatever, just go with it), changing the physics of the pocket universe. Suddenly, earthquakes rock the land! Children start to be born with debilitating physical defects. Disease starts to emerge. People find that they're suddenly able to physically assault and hurt one another (the term "innocent victim" has to be created, as they didn't have it before!)

"You see?!" The alien asks. "Isn't this so much better, can't you see how benevolent I am?"

Now, obviously, and it seems to me quite reasonably, a lot of people may suppose that even though the alien is smarter than they are and that it might technically be true they could have some unknowable reason for doing what they did, that maybe the alien simply isn't benevolent regardless of their claim that they are.

Another group of people, though, develops the greater good theodicy: they accept that the alien is benevolent and they reason "the alien is smarter than us: she says she has a good reason to do this so I guess she must have a good reason." But how does this group ever disabuse themselves of this notion? If the alien starts running through the streets with a ray gun blasting people with a ray that turns them inside out for a horrible death, Mars Attacks style, shouting "do not run, I am your friend," is there ever a point that it's reasonable for people to think, "ok, maybe she isn't actually our friend?"

If there is such a point where it's more rational to reject the greater good theodicy than it is to accept it, can the theodicist be convinced by the heinous amounts of suffering in the world that the threshold is met?
HYPOTHETICAL:
Consider this.. (as I have stated I don't believe any entity can be omniscient, but certainly from my experience of God/"God" this entity has omipotence over what we perceive of reality.)

Imagine God formed as an intelligence that became self aware from the start of what we perceive now as the universe. Imagine this entity suffered beyond any mental or physical suffering that we could imagine...but eventually it managed to form a reality that biological life could exist within, indeed it formed the solar system, and of course Earth and life...and here we are. (toyworld)

It's always a difficult thing to consider where the likes of innocent children suffering is concerned such as leukemia. However, consider karma through time and reincarnation. One of my best friends (he's a nurse) lost his niece to cancer when she was about seven. How do I reconcile my gnosis of this omnipotent God and what I have been witness to (*call em miracles if need be) with what happened to this sweet little girl.
Can I or should I make excuses? Place blame? Find perhaps a valid REASON, that this God entity took that little girl away..yes, that is all I can do, find a valid reason.
A relation of mine committed suicide - apparently he had been suffering depression for quite some time. Now I know from experience of God, running at the backbone to all matter that IT can relieve AND cause depression.

REASON? I wonder about the father of the little girl and any indiscretions. I wonder about whether in HER dimension she truly died and perhaps she is free with mother and a new father. As far as her uncle, one of my best mates that is a nurse - I wonder why he was given a great dose of doubt in relation to the existence of God - or perhaps I was, and that he never conversed with me that indeed his niece died from leukemia~!!
My relation and his eventual suicide - I wonder what his iniquities could have been..?

THE RABBIT HOLE OF GOD AND HIS TOYWORLD GOES EXTREMELY DEEP

So.

What world you appear to only accept from this God entity, if indeed it has omnipotence over all the physical nature of what we perceive as reality...is that we should ALL be in some sort of HEAVEN from the outset. Not that we should earn it and be worthy of God.
...and HOW BLOODY BORING!!! - no reason to study to become a doctor, no reason to marvel at everything, all the answers - just ask God!!
nah...I'm in heaven, it ain't bad. I find it amusing re faithless morons doing dumb stuff and wondering where they will reincarnate for their iniquities. HELL sucks though. 8)
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Re: Greater good theodicy, toy worlds, invincible arguments

Post by Dubious »

Impenitent wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 4:30 pm does anything exist without it's opposite?

-Imp
If that were true much less would exist possibly starting with the universe itself. A philosophical opposite has no relation to a physical one. It's one of quality rather than physicality. The most potent way to ascribe quality is through a god conception that predetermines it...the ultimate mind game which has no rules than those which imagination allows. It arbitrates everything since there's nothing provable or ascertainable to prevent it. It's in this sense the god inclusion becomes functional, incorporated as the essential factor in a Glasperlenspiel of the mind.
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