Ok, but why would he want to. A perfect God would not choose nudge a perfect world out of perfection.
Again, presupposition of His motives; if He wanted us to become stronger, we must have had opposition, which could not have taken place in the paradisaical Garden of Eden.
It seems that for every observation you might be called to explain, you can say “God could have done that”, and in response to any speculation of whether God would choose to do that you can accuse “presupposition of His motives”. What can your theory not explain?
Intelligence is no match for experience; He could have programmed robots to be perfect Gods, I suppose, but they wouldn’t be children, because they wouldn’t have the spark of life. (Yes, I know, my entire argument has as a predicate the existence of a non-physical (for certain definitions of “physical”) entity that controls the physical aspects of life.) As for “initial conditions”… I’m hesitant to answer this point, because the explanation may well exceed the inferential distance.
That is not at all a response to the first major criticism: “It seems unlikely that some of his children would take so much more fire than others to refine.”
Experience is not mysterious thing. It is a means of accumulating data that an agent could be designed to start with. It is a way of traing behaviors that an agent can be designed to start out executing. We would design an agent to grow more powerful from experience because we do not know now what data and behaviors to give it. A perfect God would know.
Got it! I’ve been racking my brain, and I’ve come up with an answer: my theory would be proven false by the discovery of sentient extraterrestrial life that did not look like us.
Ok, it is good that you are making this effort, but that is way too safe. In the near future, we wouldn’t even notice if there were such extraterrestrial life. A better answer should constrain your anticipated experience.
Thanks for noticing my effort. ;3 I know it’s weak; I’m working my way up. Umm… the dissolution of the state of Israel, the administrative dissolution of the Church...
I know that these are non-terminating tests. x_x I’ll look for one that constrains my present experience, but that’ll be pretty difficult. One of the tenets of Christian religions, as you should know to your dismay, is that God’s not going to give us any hard proof during our time here. At least, until the Second Coming, at which point Christianity should be pretty well into the 90% range. :P
You seem to be looking for one big decisive test, which as you note, your religion protects itself against. It may help to instead use lots of smaller test, and accumulate evidence. Ask of the things you observe, not if your religion allows it to happen, but how likely your religion says it is, and how likely other theories say it is.
One issue that can frustrate such a project is that if you have not assessed the relative probabilities in advance of your observation, it is tempting to skew them in favor of your favorite theory. So one thing I keep in mind when attempting this sort of thing is Conservation of Expected Evidence. The way I apply this is when I notice I want to call some observation evidence for my theory, I will imagine the observation going the other way and consider how indignant I would be if someone were to declare that evidence against my theory.
:3 Sounds complicated. I’ll work on that, thanks. In fact I have been, slowly, but it sounded like you were asking for a decisive test, so that’s what I tried to provide for you.
Experience is not mysterious thing. It is a means of accumulating data that an agent could be designed to start with. It is a way of traing behaviors that an agent can be designed to start out executing.
This follows from a non-soulist perspective, which means that we fundamentally differ in our opinions. Sorry. And I know it isn’t a response; the proper response, as I said, requires too great an inferential distance.
What can your theory not explain?
Here lies the key to my puzzle; the reason I’m attempting to instigate a crisis of faith. I don’t know the answer to this question, but I am searching desperately for it.
This follows from a non-soulist perspective, which means that we fundamentally differ in our opinions. Sorry. And I know it isn’t a response; the proper response, as I said, requires too great an inferential distance.
Can you explain how the predictions that a soulist perspective makes differ from the predictions that a non-soulist perspective makes? If you have particular beliefs about how the soul relates to experience, can you think of a test that could falsify those beliefs?
It seems that for every observation you might be called to explain, you can say “God could have done that”, and in response to any speculation of whether God would choose to do that you can accuse “presupposition of His motives”. What can your theory not explain?
That is not at all a response to the first major criticism: “It seems unlikely that some of his children would take so much more fire than others to refine.”
Experience is not mysterious thing. It is a means of accumulating data that an agent could be designed to start with. It is a way of traing behaviors that an agent can be designed to start out executing. We would design an agent to grow more powerful from experience because we do not know now what data and behaviors to give it. A perfect God would know.
Got it! I’ve been racking my brain, and I’ve come up with an answer: my theory would be proven false by the discovery of sentient extraterrestrial life that did not look like us.
Ok, it is good that you are making this effort, but that is way too safe. In the near future, we wouldn’t even notice if there were such extraterrestrial life. A better answer should constrain your anticipated experience.
Thanks for noticing my effort. ;3 I know it’s weak; I’m working my way up. Umm… the dissolution of the state of Israel, the administrative dissolution of the Church...
I know that these are non-terminating tests. x_x I’ll look for one that constrains my present experience, but that’ll be pretty difficult. One of the tenets of Christian religions, as you should know to your dismay, is that God’s not going to give us any hard proof during our time here. At least, until the Second Coming, at which point Christianity should be pretty well into the 90% range. :P
But yes, I’ll keep looking.
You seem to be looking for one big decisive test, which as you note, your religion protects itself against. It may help to instead use lots of smaller test, and accumulate evidence. Ask of the things you observe, not if your religion allows it to happen, but how likely your religion says it is, and how likely other theories say it is.
One issue that can frustrate such a project is that if you have not assessed the relative probabilities in advance of your observation, it is tempting to skew them in favor of your favorite theory. So one thing I keep in mind when attempting this sort of thing is Conservation of Expected Evidence. The way I apply this is when I notice I want to call some observation evidence for my theory, I will imagine the observation going the other way and consider how indignant I would be if someone were to declare that evidence against my theory.
:3 Sounds complicated. I’ll work on that, thanks. In fact I have been, slowly, but it sounded like you were asking for a decisive test, so that’s what I tried to provide for you.
This follows from a non-soulist perspective, which means that we fundamentally differ in our opinions. Sorry. And I know it isn’t a response; the proper response, as I said, requires too great an inferential distance.
Here lies the key to my puzzle; the reason I’m attempting to instigate a crisis of faith. I don’t know the answer to this question, but I am searching desperately for it.
Can you explain how the predictions that a soulist perspective makes differ from the predictions that a non-soulist perspective makes? If you have particular beliefs about how the soul relates to experience, can you think of a test that could falsify those beliefs?
I’m workin’ on one. :3 That’s the crux of my argument, the difficulty I’m having, the reason I’m questioning in the first place.