It’s not a well-defined enough hypothesis to assign a number to: but the the main thing is that it’s going to be very low. In particular, it is going to be lower than a reasonable prior for a universe coming into existence without a creator. The reason existence seems like evidence of a creator, to us, is that we’re used to attributing functioning complexity to an agent-like designer. This is the famous Watchmaker analogy that I am sure you are familiar with. But everything we know about agents designing things tells us that the agents doing the designing are always far more complex than the objects they’ve created. The most complicated manufactured items in the world require armies of designers and factory workers and they’re usually based on centuries of previous design work. Even then, they are probably no manufactured objects in the world that are more complex than human beings.
So if the universe were designed, the designer is almost certainly far more complex than the universe. And as I’m sure you know, complex hypotheses get low initial priors. In other words: a spontaneous Watchmaker is far more unlikely than a spontaneous watch. Now: an apologist might argue that God is different. That God is in fact simple. Actually, they have argued this and such attempts constitute what I would call the best arguments for the existence of God. But there are two problems with these attempts. First, the way they argue that God is simple is based on imprecise, anthropocentric vocabulary that hides complexity. An “omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent creator” sounds pretty simple. But if you actually break down each component into what it would actually have to be computationally it would be incredibly complex. The only way it’s simple is with hand-waving magic.
Second, A simple agent is totally contrary to our actual experience with agents and their designs. But that experience is the only thing leading us to conclude that existence is evidence for a designer in the first place. We don’t have any evidence that a complex design can come from a simple creator.
This a more complex and (I think) theoretically sophisticated way of making the same point the rhetorical question “Who created the creator?” makes. The long and short of it is that while existence perhaps is very good evidence for a creator, the creator hypothesis involves so much complexity that the prior for His spontaneous existence is necessarily lower than the prior for the universe’s spontaneous existence.
An “omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent creator” sounds pretty simple. But if you actually break down each component into what it would actually have to be computationally it would be incredibly complex.
I agree that the “omnibenevolent” part would be incredibly complex (FAI-complete).
But “omnipotent”, “omnipresent” and “omniscient” seem much easier. For example, it could be a computer which simulates this world—it has all the data, all the data are on its hard disk, and it could change any of these data.
I actually think this illustrates my point quite nicely: the lower limit for the complexity of God (the God you describe) is by definition slightly more complicated than the world itself (the universe is included in your description!).
What would be your prior probability for God existing before updating on your own existence?
I have absolutely no idea. Good question. What would be yours?
It’s not a well-defined enough hypothesis to assign a number to: but the the main thing is that it’s going to be very low. In particular, it is going to be lower than a reasonable prior for a universe coming into existence without a creator. The reason existence seems like evidence of a creator, to us, is that we’re used to attributing functioning complexity to an agent-like designer. This is the famous Watchmaker analogy that I am sure you are familiar with. But everything we know about agents designing things tells us that the agents doing the designing are always far more complex than the objects they’ve created. The most complicated manufactured items in the world require armies of designers and factory workers and they’re usually based on centuries of previous design work. Even then, they are probably no manufactured objects in the world that are more complex than human beings.
So if the universe were designed, the designer is almost certainly far more complex than the universe. And as I’m sure you know, complex hypotheses get low initial priors. In other words: a spontaneous Watchmaker is far more unlikely than a spontaneous watch. Now: an apologist might argue that God is different. That God is in fact simple. Actually, they have argued this and such attempts constitute what I would call the best arguments for the existence of God. But there are two problems with these attempts. First, the way they argue that God is simple is based on imprecise, anthropocentric vocabulary that hides complexity. An “omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and omnibenevolent creator” sounds pretty simple. But if you actually break down each component into what it would actually have to be computationally it would be incredibly complex. The only way it’s simple is with hand-waving magic.
Second, A simple agent is totally contrary to our actual experience with agents and their designs. But that experience is the only thing leading us to conclude that existence is evidence for a designer in the first place. We don’t have any evidence that a complex design can come from a simple creator.
This a more complex and (I think) theoretically sophisticated way of making the same point the rhetorical question “Who created the creator?” makes. The long and short of it is that while existence perhaps is very good evidence for a creator, the creator hypothesis involves so much complexity that the prior for His spontaneous existence is necessarily lower than the prior for the universe’s spontaneous existence.
I agree that the “omnibenevolent” part would be incredibly complex (FAI-complete).
But “omnipotent”, “omnipresent” and “omniscient” seem much easier. For example, it could be a computer which simulates this world—it has all the data, all the data are on its hard disk, and it could change any of these data.
I actually think this illustrates my point quite nicely: the lower limit for the complexity of God (the God you describe) is by definition slightly more complicated than the world itself (the universe is included in your description!).