SimWorld without suffering

[Blackdog22]

If you understand it. If you're ready, willing and able to own what it is you're talking about.

Okay, I believe in unicorns. I will write a book on unicorns that says they are everywhere on the earth for everyone to see. Oh and no one can argue with me using anything that I wrote. In other words no one can ever argue with me.

Bravo Willamena.

Also, are you saying she has to be a believer before her common sense can be listened too? Are you saying that a non believer is incapable of understanding a contradiction? This honestly seems like a desperate act of nonsense or I don't understand what your talking about at all.

 

[Gloone]

Okay, I believe in unicorns. I will write a book on unicorns that says they are everywhere on the earth for everyone to see. Oh and no one can argue with me using anything that I wrote. In other words no one can ever argue with me.

Bravo Willamena.

Also, are you saying she has to be a believer before her common sense can be listened too? Are you saying that a non believer is incapable of understanding a contradiction? This honestly seems like a desperate act of nonsense or I don't understand what your talking about at all.

Basically Meow thinks the world is evil and there is nothing that can be done to fix it. A simworld can be replicated to run without sin according to Meow. She doesn't acknowledge Jesus, doesn't accept god, and thinks she has all of the answers for the universe pretty much. But I have not herd much about this simworld and how people would live in it and interact with one another. Maybe they don't eat food and live like spirits without souls. I would still like to know more about this simworld. To say you can beat someone with a bat and not do any harm to them emotionally, physically or mentally still seems to be rather intrusive on someone and seems like it could cause just as much of a nuisance. Only the person getting beat with the bat might be able to turn on an ignore switch while the people bopping you over the head are laughing. I could only imagine how long that chaos would last before sanity kicked in an the bat gets turned on people... lol

 

[Willamena]

Okay, I believe in unicorns. I will write a book on unicorns that says they are everywhere on the earth for everyone to see. Oh and no one can argue with me using anything that I wrote. In other words no one can ever argue with me.

Bravo Willamena.

Straw man, and red herring in one. Red straw herring! Well done.

Also, are you saying she has to be a believer before her common sense can be listened too? Are you saying that a non believer is incapable of understanding a contradiction? This honestly seems like a desperate act of nonsense or I don't understand what your talking about at all.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm really not. Her common sense is as good and common as everyone else's. I'm talking about constructing one's arguments, not about who may or may not argue.

 

[Meow Mix]

Basically Meow thinks the world is evil and there is nothing that can be done to fix it. A simworld can be replicated to run without sin according to Meow. She doesn't acknowledge Jesus, doesn't accept god, and thinks she has all of the answers for the universe pretty much. But I have not herd much about this simworld and how people would live in it and interact with one another. Maybe they don't eat food and live like spirits without souls. I would still like to know more about this simworld. To say you can beat someone with a bat and not do any harm to them emotionally, physically or mentally still seems to be rather intrusive on someone and seems like it could cause just as much of a nuisance. Only the person getting beat with the bat might be able to turn on an ignore switch while the people bopping you over the head are laughing. I could only imagine how long that chaos would last before sanity kicked in an the bat gets turned on people... lol

No, you're not understanding what I'm saying at all.

This is the 2395783257239857235th time I'll have said it, but the PoE is not about complaining that suffering exists. It's not about trying to offer "solutions" to suffering. The "SimWorld" is a response to an objection to the PoE (that perhaps suffering necessarily exists): it defeats that response by showing it is indeed logically possible for many forms of suffering not to exist without contradiction.

The PoE is entirely about simply showing that there is a contradiction in a certain set of assumed characteristics of God. THAT. IS. ALL.

Raaagghhhhh! HULK SMASH!!!

 

[Meow Mix]

If you understand it. If you're ready, willing and able to own what it is you're talking about.

Well, yep. I understand their argument (rather, their claimed attributes) and the PoE as Epicurus put it and my defense of PoE. Where's the problem?

 

[Gloone]

No, you're not understanding what I'm saying at all.

This is the 2395783257239857235th time I'll have said it, but the PoE is not about complaining that suffering exists. It's not about trying to offer "solutions" to suffering. The "SimWorld" is a response to an objection to the PoE (that perhaps suffering necessarily exists): it defeats that response by showing it is indeed logically possible for many forms of suffering not to exist without contradiction.

The PoE is entirely about simply showing that there is a contradiction in a certain set of assumed characteristics of God. THAT. IS. ALL.

Raaagghhhhh! HULK SMASH!!!

What Epicurus has stated is the obvious. To defend this in the way you have presented it is like telling someone the world is still flat. Even-though everyone knows it isn't. You are basically denying Epicurus any creditability.

 

[Meow Mix]

What Epicurus has stated is the obvious. To defend this in the way you have presented it is like telling someone the world is still flat. Even-though everyone knows it isn't. You are basically denying Epicurus any creditability.

I don't think you're grasping my argument.

For fun, can you explain in your own words what you think my argument is? Most importantly, what its goal is?

Because you explained it totally wrong just a few posts above. Of course it will probably seem silly if you don't know what it's arguing for.

 

[Gloone]

I don't think you're grasping my argument.

For fun, can you explain in your own words what you think my argument is? Most importantly, what its goal is?

Because you explained it totally wrong just a few posts above. Of course it will probably seem silly if you don't know what it's arguing for.

No I don't think your argument is silly. I already told you that at the beginning of this thread. I would say you have to know what happiness is before you can eliminate or resist what you would consider to be evil.

 

[Blackdog22]

Straw man, and red herring in one. Red straw herring! Well done.

So you realize my response was simply mimicking your response to Meow right? So by pointing out the flaw in my argument, you are also pointing out the flaw in your argument.

 

[Meow Mix]

No I don't think your argument is silly. I already told you that at the beginning of this thread. I would say you have to know what happiness is before you can eliminate or resist what you would consider to be evil.

But the PoE isn't about eliminating or resisting what's considered to be evil.

This is why I'm asserting that I don't think you get what it's arguing: the things you say insinuate that you think it's saying something that it's not.

 

[Gloone]

But the PoE isn't about eliminating or resisting what's considered to be evil.

This is why I'm asserting that I don't think you get what it's arguing: the things you say insinuate that you think it's saying something that it's not.

Tell me what PoE is then please, I may be ill-informed. If you already explained it once then just refer me the post or link please.

 

[Blackdog22]

No I don't think your argument is silly. I already told you that at the beginning of this thread. I would say you have to know what happiness is before you can eliminate or resist what you would consider to be evil.

Happiness is the absence of evil. Unless you think Heaven, paradise, Nervana are all terrible places and you wish to be in hell then you would have to agree with this. What Meow has(At least in some way) suggested is the idea of Heaven. Everyone is acting as if this idea is far fetched while, I guess, forgetting that if you buy into this religion then you believe in Heaven. Of course God could have done it better, if not then your belief in a better afterlife is futile.

The only explanation for a God allowing this place to go to hell, while reserving the "good stuff" for the invisible afterlife is that he needs suffering for some unknown reason. Of course a good being would have no need for suffering of any type. Is no one aware that Earth was considered paradise before the fall of man?

Not to be completely off topic, but I doubt this God is capable of doing anything completely good. I think he is evil plain and simple. I think the angels he created failed with the fall of Lucifer and I think his human project failed with the fall of adam and eve. I think this creator is a complete failure, or he intended for us to fail and for Satan for fail and he enjoys the fact that Satan is torturing us on earth and is going to burn us forever in hell. Like Meow said, If you received money for killing babies then used that money to feed starving children, your still a sick *******.

Thoughts, responses, flames.

 

[Gloone]

Happiness is the absence of evil. Unless you think Heaven, paradise, Nervana are all terrible places and you wish to be in hell then you would have to agree with this. What Meow is suggested is the idea of Heaven. Everyone is acting as if this idea is far fetched while, I guess, forgetting that if you buy into this religion then you believe in Heaven. Of course God could have done it better, if not then your belief in a better afterlife is futile.

The only explanation for a God allowing this place to go to hell, while reserving the "good stuff" for the invisible afterlife is that he needs suffering for some unknown reason. Of course a good being would have no need for suffering of any type. Is no one aware that Earth was considered paradise before the fall of man?

Not to be completely off topic, but I doubt this God is capable of doing anything completely good. I think he is evil plain and simple. I think the angels he created failed with the fall of Lucifer and I think his human project failed with the fall of adam and eve. I think this creator is a complete failure, or he intended for us to fail and for Satan for fail and he enjoys the fact that Satan is torturing us on earth and is going to burn us forever in hell.

Thoughts, responses, flames.

Okay well we can just refer to is as what is right and wrong or what is good and bad. I never really thought there was much of a difference but i guess there is to some people.

 

[Blackdog22]

Okay well we can just refer to is as what is right and wrong or what is good and bad. I never really thought there was much of a difference but i guess there is to some people.

I never mentioned anything about the difference between good and bad or right and wrong. I think they can mostly be used interchangeably. I am however arguing that the idea Meow is putting forth, that God could of done it better, is perfectly believable based on religious mythology. It was also done to show that God must be evil on some level. I don't know how you gleamed anything else from my response.

 

[PolyHedral]

I think I've heard that, but yes please. I've always had a deep interest in the simulatability of the mind.

In computer science, there are various classes of "machine", which are basically constructs that can solve problems, and they are classed based on what set of problems they can solve. However, some machines are more powerful than others, as the more powerful machines can compute the results of the lesser machines, but not vice-versa.

However, of particular note is the machine at the top of the hierarchy, Alan Turing's Universal machine. The reason this is important is that any Turing machine is itself calculable by a Turing machine. Thus, any construction that can simulate a Turing machine (such as the computer you're viewing this on) can also simulate every other Turing-machine-like construct.

The universe, and everything in it, must either be equivalent to a Turing machine, or be even greater than it. This becomes obvious when you consider that, if it weren't, we wouldn't be able to build Turing machines.

However, now we've ran into a problem. The only theoretical devices that are greater than a Turing machine is a hypercomputer, and, as you can see from the page, all of them involve computing an infinite number of things in a finite time.

Since it's generally assumed that this isn't possible, we must conclude that the universe is a Turing machine-equivalent, and thus simulatable by a Turing machine. Since simulating the universe involves simulating everything in it, the brain is thus simultable by a Turing machine with sufficiently large memory and/or a sufficiently long time. As mentioned earlier, your computer's processor is Turing-equivalent. As is Conway's Game Of Life.

 

[Gloone]

I never mentioned anything about the difference between good and bad or right and wrong. I think they can mostly be used interchangeably. I am however arguing that the idea Meow is putting forth, that God could of done it better, is perfectly believable based on religious mythology. It was also done to show that God must be evil on some level. I don't know how you gleamed anything else from my response.

It depends. I was making a different argument and yours is trying to say heaven and hell are somehow not universal. I don’t see how anyone can understand the concept of heaven if you can’t distinguish the difference between that and hell or what is good and bad or right and wrong. If you have a scratch on the surface of something, painting over it isn’t going to do anyone any good, until someone actually takes the time to buff the scratch out and then put a better finish on it. There is no point in doing things halfway, or doing incompetent work. You might as well setup a staircase, not put nails in and set a video camera up to see who the first one is to fall down it.

 

[Quagmire]

Yeah, I definitely see your point. Suffering is fantastic! All those babies crying because their insides are melting are just a bunch of whiners. When I read about the holocaust I think, "Wow, that was so fantastic and necessary!"

Bravo.

This is all just another form of whining.

I'm not the one that attributed God with benevolence;

Doesn't matter: it's one of the variables in the PoE equation.

I'm just going off of the characteristics assigned by popular paradigms of theism. Benevolence is tied to suffering in such a way that a benevolent being shouldn't cause suffering, it's pretty much what the word means.

Only if the idea that suffering is inherently "bad" is a foregone conclusion.

PoE isn't a moral judgement.

It's predicated on a moral judgment, ie., that suffering is "bad".

It's a logical argument;

Predicated on a moral judgment.

i.e. it exposes contradictions in a set of assumed propositions. In this case, omnipotence + omniscience + creator + benevolence + existence (of the god) + suffering = contradiction.

Wrong: the list of assumed propositions should read like this: omnipotence + omniscience + creator + benevolence + existence (of the god) + suffering + the assumption that suffering is inherently bad = contradiction.

The highlighted assumption is there, it just isn't being copped to (no matter how many times it's pointed out).

That's all. No moral judgement is passed in PoE.

Yup, sure is.

OK: let me ask you then and see if I have any more luck at getting a straight answer: Please explain why suffering is "bad".

And just so you know ahead of time, answers like:

"Because it hurts"
"Oh, so you think suffering is a good thing?"
"Well if you don't know..."
or
"Because I'm not a sadist/masochist"

...have already been taken. Lets see if you can come up with something more original (and hopefully, something that actually answers the question).

 

[PolyHedral]

And now, for reference, the logical deduction that physical suffering is bad:

Physical suffering is the experiance of pain.
Pain indicates damage to the body.
Damage to the body impedes the body's ability to survive.

If survival is the imperative, (and it is in almost all cases) anything stopping you from surviving is bad. Thus, suffering is a bad thing.

 

[Gloone]

I don't think you're grasping my argument.
For fun, can you explain in your own words what you think my argument is? Most importantly, what its goal is?

Well let me see how much of this I can grasp without grasping a red herring. You are basically asking why can god not create a game with mushroom power ups and obstacle courses that don’t have endgame /game over precursors and allows you to have an infinite amount of fun without having to sweat the small stuff. So I will ask, is this a rhetorical question? That evil has no place or doesn’t deserve to have a place in this world? Maybe I am off by a long shot and if it is then enjoy hacking away at it.

 

[Willamena]

So you realize my response was simply mimicking your response to Meow right?

Yeah, that'd be the straw part...