I noticed that in the survey results from last year that there was a large number of people who assigned a non-trivial probability to the simulation hypothesis, yet identified as atheist.
I know this is just about definitions and labels, so isn’t an incredibly important issue, but I was wondering why people choose to identify that way. It seems to me that if you assign a >20% chance to us living in a computer simulation that you should also identify as agnostic.
If not, it seems like you are using a definition of god which includes all the major religions, yet excludes our possible simulators. What is the distinction that you think makes the simulation not count as theism?
Probably these people use a definition of theism that says that a god has to be an ontologically basic entity in an absolute sense, not just relative to our universe. If our simulators are complex entities that have evolved naturally in their physical universe (or are simulated in turn by a higher level) then they don’t count as gods by this definition.
Also, the general definition of God includes omniscience and omnipotence, but a simulator-god may not be either, e.g. due to limited computing resources they couldn’t simulate an arbitrarily large number of unique humans.
Hmm, that is a distinction that is pretty clear cut. However most people who believe in god believe that all people have ontologically basic souls. Therefore, since they think ontologically basic is nothing particularly special, I do not think that they would consider that a particularly important part of the definition of a god.
They might think that being ontologically basic is a necessary condition for being a god, but not a sufficient condition. Then simulators are not gods, but souls are not gods either because they do not satisfy other possible necessary conditions: e,g, having created the universe, or being omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent (or at least being much more powerful, knowing and good than a human), etc.
Or perhaps, they believe being ontologically basic is necessary and sufficient for being a god, but interpret this not just as not being composed of material parts, but in the stronger sense of not being dependent on anything else for existing (which souls do not satisfy because they are created by God, and simulators don’t because they have evolved or have been simulated in turn). (ETA: this last possibility probably applies to some theists but not the atheists you are talking about.)
What is your response to the argument I gave below?
I feel like there are two independent questions:
1) Does there exist a creator with a mind?
2) Are minds ontologically basic?
I think that accurately factors beliefs into 2 different questions, since there are (I think) very few people who believe that god has an an ontologically basic mind yet we do not.
I do not think it is justified to combine these questions together, since there are people who say yes to 1 but not 2, and many many people who say yes to 2 but not 1.
They are indeed logically distinct questions. However, up to a few years ago all or almost all people who said yes to 1 also said yes to 2. The word “theism” was coined with these people in mind and is strongly associated with yes to 2 and with the rest of the religious memeset.
Thus, it is not surprising that many people who only accept (or find likely) 1 but not 2 would reject this label for fear of false associations. Since people accepting both 1 and 2 (religionists) tend to differ philosophically very much in other things from those accepting 1 but not 2 (simulationists), it seems better to use a new technical term (e.g. “creatorism”) for plain yes to 1, instead of using a historical term like “theism” that obscures this difference.
Disagree with theists that people have ontologically basic souls; further disagree with the claim that the ‘ontologically basic’ / ‘supernatural’ aspect of a god is unimportant to its definition.
(What theists think is not relevant to a question about the beliefs of people who not self-identify as theists.)
I think that accurately factors beliefs into 2 different questions, since there are (I think) very few people who believe that god has an an ontologically basic mind yet we do not.
I do not think it is justified to combine these questions together, since there are people who say yes to 1 but not 2, and many many people who say yes to 2 but not 1.
Calling myself an agnostic would put me in an empirical cluster with people who think gods worthy of worship might exist, and possibly have some vague hope for an afterlife (though I know not all agnostics believe these things). I do not think of potential matrix overlords the way people think of the things they connect to the words “God” and “gods”. I think of them as “those bastards that (might) have us all trapped in a zoo.” And if they existed, I wouldn’t expect them to have (real) magic powers, nor to be the creators of a real universe, just a zoo that looks like one. I do not think that animals trapped in a zoo with enclosure walls painted with trees and such to look like a real forest should think of zookeepers as gods, even if they have effectively created the animals’ world, and may have created the animals themselves (through artificial breeding, or even cloning), and I think that is basically analogous to what our position would be if the simulation hypothesis was correct.
Hmm. I was more thinking about a physics simulation by something that is nothing like a human than an ancestor simulation like in Bostrom’s original argument. I think that most people who assign a non-trivial chance to ancestor simulation would assign a non-trivial chance to physics simulation.
I don’t think either variety is very similar to a zoo, but if we were in a physics simulation, I do not think our relationship with our simulators is anything like a animal-zookeeper relationship.
I also think that you should taboo the word “universe,” since it implies that there is nothing containing it. Whatever it is that we are in, our simulators created all of it, and probably could interfere if they wanted to. They are unlikely to want to now, since they went so long without interfering so far.
I also think that you should taboo the word “universe,” since it implies that there is nothing containing it.
It may have once meant that, like the word “atom” once meant “indivisible.” But that’s not how people seem to use it anymore. Once a critical mass of people start misusing a word, I would rather become part of the problem than fight the inevitable.
Theism usually involves God as the explanation of why the world exists, and why we are conscious. In usual simulation scenarios, a world happens through physics and natural selection etc. And then a copy of part of that world is made. Yes, the copying process “made” the copy, but most explanations of how the copied world is the way it is (from the point of view of those in it) still has to do with physics, natural selection, etc. and not the copying process.
In other words, “who designed our world?” is more relevant than “who created our world?”.
I noticed that in the survey results from last year that there was a large number of people who assigned a non-trivial probability to the simulation hypothesis, yet identified as atheist.
I know this is just about definitions and labels, so isn’t an incredibly important issue, but I was wondering why people choose to identify that way. It seems to me that if you assign a >20% chance to us living in a computer simulation that you should also identify as agnostic.
If not, it seems like you are using a definition of god which includes all the major religions, yet excludes our possible simulators. What is the distinction that you think makes the simulation not count as theism?
Probably these people use a definition of theism that says that a god has to be an ontologically basic entity in an absolute sense, not just relative to our universe. If our simulators are complex entities that have evolved naturally in their physical universe (or are simulated in turn by a higher level) then they don’t count as gods by this definition.
Also, the general definition of God includes omniscience and omnipotence, but a simulator-god may not be either, e.g. due to limited computing resources they couldn’t simulate an arbitrarily large number of unique humans.
Hmm, that is a distinction that is pretty clear cut. However most people who believe in god believe that all people have ontologically basic souls. Therefore, since they think ontologically basic is nothing particularly special, I do not think that they would consider that a particularly important part of the definition of a god.
If you read the survey questions God get’s defined as an ontologically basic entity for the sake of the survey.
Oh. I was looking at the excel data and missed that. Oops. Maybe this means a lot more people agree with me than I thought.
They might think that being ontologically basic is a necessary condition for being a god, but not a sufficient condition. Then simulators are not gods, but souls are not gods either because they do not satisfy other possible necessary conditions: e,g, having created the universe, or being omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent (or at least being much more powerful, knowing and good than a human), etc.
Or perhaps, they believe being ontologically basic is necessary and sufficient for being a god, but interpret this not just as not being composed of material parts, but in the stronger sense of not being dependent on anything else for existing (which souls do not satisfy because they are created by God, and simulators don’t because they have evolved or have been simulated in turn). (ETA: this last possibility probably applies to some theists but not the atheists you are talking about.)
What is your response to the argument I gave below?
They are indeed logically distinct questions. However, up to a few years ago all or almost all people who said yes to 1 also said yes to 2. The word “theism” was coined with these people in mind and is strongly associated with yes to 2 and with the rest of the religious memeset.
Thus, it is not surprising that many people who only accept (or find likely) 1 but not 2 would reject this label for fear of false associations. Since people accepting both 1 and 2 (religionists) tend to differ philosophically very much in other things from those accepting 1 but not 2 (simulationists), it seems better to use a new technical term (e.g. “creatorism”) for plain yes to 1, instead of using a historical term like “theism” that obscures this difference.
Yes. I disagree with them.
(Eliminating the supernatural aspect explains the human mind, and explains away God.)
Disagree with simulatarians about whether or not we are simulated?
Disagree with theists that people have ontologically basic souls; further disagree with the claim that the ‘ontologically basic’ / ‘supernatural’ aspect of a god is unimportant to its definition.
(What theists think is not relevant to a question about the beliefs of people who not self-identify as theists.)
I feel like there are two independent questions:
1) Does there exist a creator with a mind?
2) Are minds ontologically basic?
I think that accurately factors beliefs into 2 different questions, since there are (I think) very few people who believe that god has an an ontologically basic mind yet we do not.
I do not think it is justified to combine these questions together, since there are people who say yes to 1 but not 2, and many many people who say yes to 2 but not 1.
Calling myself an agnostic would put me in an empirical cluster with people who think gods worthy of worship might exist, and possibly have some vague hope for an afterlife (though I know not all agnostics believe these things). I do not think of potential matrix overlords the way people think of the things they connect to the words “God” and “gods”. I think of them as “those bastards that (might) have us all trapped in a zoo.” And if they existed, I wouldn’t expect them to have (real) magic powers, nor to be the creators of a real universe, just a zoo that looks like one. I do not think that animals trapped in a zoo with enclosure walls painted with trees and such to look like a real forest should think of zookeepers as gods, even if they have effectively created the animals’ world, and may have created the animals themselves (through artificial breeding, or even cloning), and I think that is basically analogous to what our position would be if the simulation hypothesis was correct.
Hmm. I was more thinking about a physics simulation by something that is nothing like a human than an ancestor simulation like in Bostrom’s original argument. I think that most people who assign a non-trivial chance to ancestor simulation would assign a non-trivial chance to physics simulation.
I don’t think either variety is very similar to a zoo, but if we were in a physics simulation, I do not think our relationship with our simulators is anything like a animal-zookeeper relationship.
I also think that you should taboo the word “universe,” since it implies that there is nothing containing it. Whatever it is that we are in, our simulators created all of it, and probably could interfere if they wanted to. They are unlikely to want to now, since they went so long without interfering so far.
It may have once meant that, like the word “atom” once meant “indivisible.” But that’s not how people seem to use it anymore. Once a critical mass of people start misusing a word, I would rather become part of the problem than fight the inevitable.
If you were using the word that way, then it seems they are “creators of a (real) universe.”
Theism usually involves God as the explanation of why the world exists, and why we are conscious. In usual simulation scenarios, a world happens through physics and natural selection etc. And then a copy of part of that world is made. Yes, the copying process “made” the copy, but most explanations of how the copied world is the way it is (from the point of view of those in it) still has to do with physics, natural selection, etc. and not the copying process.
In other words, “who designed our world?” is more relevant than “who created our world?”.