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[Mike Mayday]

Greetings, denizens of the lower areas of the forums. A certain thought had crossed my mind and I have come to share it with you in hopes of getting feedback and hopefully making some of you think about matters you've made up your mind about long ago. Please treat it as a thought experiment.

The thread is inspired by a part of chmod's article in which he says this about Dwarf Fortress:

Humans are incapable of storing a logical graph of that size in their heads. Which is why we put it into a computer in the first place.

But allow me to start at the very beginning.

I was born to a catholic family. Generally adhering to catholic law and being a spiritual and religious person I have nevertheless come to a point where the Church and myself couldn't come to an agreement on certain ontological matters. This made me try want start anew. I have cast away all dogma and began building my faith from the ruins of the previous ones. The process (which I invite you to reenact and share the results) was as follows:

A)Asking myself a question, starting with the most fundamental one and moving on to the less important ones.
B)Deciding whether the answer is important/has an influence on my actions
C)Coming up with a simplest answer possible (impossible in my case, I just LOVE to complicate things).

1
What is the point of religion and faith?
To overcome the fear of death and old age in hopes of a continued existence afterwards. I understand that there are other possible ways of achieving this but to me they all seam like trying to forget about the reasons behind this fear instead of actually overcoming it. Religion is faith that what we DON'T KNOW to be true will turn out to be true in the end.

2
How can an existence after death be possible?
The only way possible is to have your entity* recreated in some way.
*consciousness, personality, memory, instincts, "soul"

3
What defines our consciousness?
According to my best research, we owe our self-awareness and ability to make decisions to the nervous system. In other words, what the Buddhists call "soul", (an immaterial entity that controls the body, is released upon the body's death and placed in another body afterwards), is in fact an intricate part of the material body itself, a system of specialized cells, synapses and electric or electrochemical signals (nevermind the details).

4
How can this consciousness be preserved if the cells die along with the body?
There are only two options for this: either the whole body (or just the nervous system but in a matter that allows it to thrive and function) is copied and recreated elsewhere in our universe (instantly or sometime in the future) or the body (or, again, just the nervous system) is recreated in a world higher in hierarchy above ours. Since the first one is (according to our knowledge) very highly unlikely, allow me to explain just how likely the second one is.

5
What does "a world higher in hierarchy above ours" mean?
Let's look at the world as a set of data (taking the form of particles and whatever they're made of) that follows a rather simple set of rules (algorithms). Now imagine we are able to learn ALL the basic physical laws of our universe. Next we run a virtual physical simulation on a computer. We start by placing a model of a cube-shaped room with a strong source of gravity underneath. Next, let's fill the room with air particles and finally- a full virtual model of a human being (presumable scanned in our own world). If you did all that right, you end up with a CONSCIOUS, LIVING, BREATHING "CLONE" of that very human. This human is fully aware of his existence and surroundings just like you are. Place a lightsource in the room (to make him comfortable?), then a speaker and you can talk to him! Voila, you have achieved a WORLD of LOWER hierarchy and it is now inhabited by one human being.
A running copy of Dwarf Fortress is exactly that- a world that follows some physical rules, only the creatures that inhabit it are not complex enough to possess self-awareness.
It is therefore entirely possible that OUR OWN WORLD is exactly the same- a seemingly "virtual" simulation running on a computer or an equivalent of it.
Now this is the fun part where you shout: "but our world is real and a simulation is virtual!!". Hah, I say! Give the human in our box-room an electron microscope and tell him to start observing his surroundings. He will perceive them in the very same way that we do and will quickly decide that HIS world is REAL. And in fact, he will be correct! The difference between a perfect virtual simulation of a world and what YOU consider a real world is unnoticeable, unexplainable and therefore irrelevant (or possibly nonexistent).
Therefore, the existence of a world with a "computer" running a "virtual" simulation that is our world is entire possible. This "computer" can be anything that can store data about the present state of the world and carry out algorithms (laws of physics), apply them to the world and then evaluate the state according to them.

6
Why is the "world computer" there?
Two possible answers. It either appeared there because of natural processes occurring there or someone put it there. Now don't get me wrong, the first answer is very tempting (heh) but doesn't do much in terms of giving us hope. So for all this faith business to have any sense, we assume there is a being in this "higher world" which is supervising the simulation (or, at the very least, started it). Just for the heck of it, let's call the being "God".

7
What are my hopes towards this God?
I hope that he recreates my body after I die and lets it live for quite some time afterwards So far, I have found no serious reason for a God to do that.

Yep, this is about as far as I have come in terms of my faith. All the rest is currently speculations and ideas, and I would like to share the one I find the most interesting.

See, some people read books, watch movies, listen to music to enrich themselves, their personality by, in a way, living the stories being told, experiencing the stuff in a vicarious way, feeling the emotions presented by the creator. Dwarf Fortress may be considered a generator of such stories to live through (and apparently Toady is working towards making the stories richer and more interesting). And maybe our world is the same thing to God. I was thinking about the way he observes our lives though. Does he use a monitor and speakers? Is his mind hooked up to the "computer" and the data is transported directly to it? No, that's not crazy enough. Let's look at chmod's post again:

Humans are incapable of storing a logical graph of that size in their heads. Which is why we put it into a computer in the first place.

Well, yes. But we're talking about God here. A being we have always imagined to be omnipotent and omniscient, of ultimate ability and ultimate intellect.
As I have shown previously, just how exactly does the "world computer" work is irrelevant. It's enough that it can store data and change it according to some algorithms. Can YOUR BRAIN do that? Yes it can, provided that the data is simple enough. Can GOD'S BRAIN do that? Yes, and we imagine he can operate on very large amounts of data. Hmmm. Perhaps data about a whole universe? In that case, he doesn't really need a computer to run the simulation.

So the idea I wanted to present here is this: it is possible that we and our whole world are a thought process happening in the brain of a being of a world higher in hierarchy than ours. It is now 3AM here and I'm thrilled at the thought of reading your response tomorrow. Right now the article is getting more and more ridiculous and nonsense, I will hopefully make it better tomorrow. Good night!

[quinnr]

Pure awesome, just pure awesome. I like to think that I'm part of a giant computer program.

[Dakk]

Its been mentioned and used in several concepts already. Some agree with the idea of our universe being a mere thought in the mind of a incredibly intelligent and complex being, or that it is actualy the product of a dream.
And its true, the mere fact that our universe can be perfectly simulated on a computer, with phisics, beings that make decisions for themselves, atoms, etc, opens up the possibility in which our world may be just a very complex program running on a very powerful computer.

So far my favorite version is the one I saw in http://grayling.arborwin.com/ grayling, which is awesome, but not for everyone for reasons you'll find out when you start reading.
While it seems very silly (and it is), the plot is very complex and tasteful to the point it makes a Lovecraft person like myself love it.

[Mike Mayday]

grayling, which is awesome, but not for everyone for reasons you'll find out when you start reading.

Oh man you could have warned me about the agonizingly terrible art and composition and clarity before I downloaded the whole archive...

[Dakk]

The art changes as the comic goes on, and improves alot.

Also, its full of gheyness, which is lovely to me, so yea.

[Mike Mayday]

The art changes as the comic goes on, and improves alot.

Yes I have noticed that. Problem is, even as the art improves (much too late), the clarity of the panels remains terrible until the very end. I believe you that there is a good story behind it, but I refuse to torment myself in order to get to know it. This isn't like DF where the presentation is nonexistent. It is here and it is revolting. A shame really, judging by the summary in the "about" page, I'd be interested.

[Timst]

Nice theory, and yes, it could work. We could all be a part of a giant computer, which will also be infallible and bug-free (or at least, very good at disguising his errors).

But I don't think that because "god" was able to create (operate ?) a world-simulating computer, then he can do the same in his head. I mean, even toady isn't able to run a DF game in his head... there's simply too much things to think about and keep record of. With some paper and pen, he might be able to do it, but it will take an insane time for each frame. And that's the same for a lot of thing. Heck, that's why computers has been invented, if our brains were able to do the same thing that our computer, we wouldn't need them.

So if there's a "god" or even a "god species", they must be technologically more advanced than us, yep, but that doesn't mean they are smarter, or even different at all. The "gods" could even be humans scientists (of a "higher world") that run this simulation in order to understand how their world was created and transformed along the ages, a bit like we build biospheres or send probes into space to discover how our universe was created.

[Lord Dakoth]

But I don't think that because "god" was able to create (operate ?) a world-simulating computer, then he can do the same in his head. I mean, even toady isn't able to run a DF game in his head... there's simply too much things to think about and keep record of. With some paper and pen, he might be able to do it, but it will take an insane time for each frame.

You say that time will pass slowly? In relation to what? Perhaps every microsecond is an agonizingly long time for God as he sits there with his calculator, pen and notebook, moving every subatomic particle individually. Our consciousness is simply made to think that one second isn't a long time.

What I'm going to try to do now is explain my beliefs about God, through calculus and physics.

Personally, I believe that God is completely independent of time and space. He is described all throughout the Bible as "unchanging." Interpreted literally, this would mean that he is unaffected by the passage of time. He is also attributed as "omnipresent," or everywhere at once. Again, if this statement is taken literally, he is not bound by distance.

This is where everything gets a little trippy. Just say that we were to write a mathematical formula that represents God. Let's assign the value "G" to represent God.

Now, what values are we going to assign to G? I have already established that G is independent of both time and distance. So, we're not going to have anything with T or D in our equation.

Well, since we eliminated "T" from our equation, we can say that God does not change. A change means a derivative. If the change is zero, then the derivative is zero! So, what else can we differentiate to get a result of zero? A constant, right? So, God is a constant!

I am fascinated by this stuff. I hope that I have gotten other people more interested in religion too.

[Muz]

But I don't think that because "god" was able to create (operate ?) a world-simulating computer, then he can do the same in his head. I mean, even toady isn't able to run a DF game in his head... there's simply too much things to think about and keep record of. With some paper and pen, he might be able to do it, but it will take an insane time for each frame. And that's the same for a lot of thing. Heck, that's why computers has been invented, if our brains were able to do the same thing that our computer, we wouldn't need them.

The theory in Islam is that God doesn't actually touch anything in this world. He creates angels to do all the work. Apparently angels are capable of moving at the speed of light, which should be enough to let them affect things.

"(Allah) Rules the cosmic affair from the heavens to the Earth. Then this affair travels to Him a distance in one day, at a measure of one thousand years of what you count." [32:5]
This indicates that God sends orders and commands from the heavens down to earth at the speed of light, similar to how we send down commands to a computer and it takes a little while for the electron to reach its spot.

So, when it says in the Quran that "We created the heavens and the earth in six days", it shows time as being relative to God's calculation of time, and it shows that the angels were responsible for generating the 'heavens and the earth'.

The Islamic notion of God is not "omnipowerful", unlike the Christian God, but it takes into account time dilation. It works similar to a computer: it takes time to send commands down from heaven, it takes time for angels to do their task, and time to send it back out to heaven again. It's just that it all happens really fast.

[Strife26]

Hint: it's DF 1.0 with a "mid-future" mod.

[Vester]

But I don't think that because "god" was able to create (operate ?) a world-simulating computer, then he can do the same in his head. I mean, even toady isn't able to run a DF game in his head... there's simply too much things to think about and keep record of. With some paper and pen, he might be able to do it, but it will take an insane time for each frame. And that's the same for a lot of thing. Heck, that's why computers has been invented, if our brains were able to do the same thing that our computer, we wouldn't need them.

The theory in Islam is that God doesn't actually touch anything in this world. He creates angels to do all the work. Apparently angels are capable of moving at the speed of light, which should be enough to let them affect things.

Sorta like the concept of demiurges?

Some Catholic theologians go one step further and say that God has both everything and nothing to do with creation. One one hand, God is creator and sustainer, but on the other hand, creation has been imparted with relative autonomy (like free will but on a cosmic scale), which implies that God will not interfere with causality or anything temporal.

[Psyco Jelly]

Mike, I must say you have given me good deal to think about seriously. It is a common idea that any internet discussion about religion will be completely fruitless, but you have proven otherwise. I always seek to alter my beliefs, to find a vision of the universe (and beyond) that is closer to perfection. I seek knowledge and insight, which you seem to have a great deal of.

I tip my metaphorical hat to you, in my eyes you have proven yourself a sage. It is refreshing to see someone speak with clarity and true purpose about such a thing.

On the same note, if we are simply part of a god's thought process, don't thought processes define us? Our brains define us, and since we are this creature's thoughts, we define that creature. Considering the current state of the world, I'd say the dreamer is in a state of disarray. Perhaps it is either in a moment of crisis, or is simply conflicted on an issue.

Considering this, it would be our responsibility to look after it, and to make sure it doesn't end up destroying itself... But then again, do we truly have free will? Mind boggling, truly.

[Keiseth]

3
What defines our consciousness?
According to my best research, we owe our self-awareness and ability to make decisions to the nervous system. In other words, what the Buddhists call "soul", (an immaterial entity that controls the body, is released upon the body's death and placed in another body afterwards), is in fact an intricate part of the material body itself, a system of specialized cells, synapses and electric or electrochemical signals (nevermind the details).

I've thought of this before and it only opens up more questions for me. If the consciousness can be described as a relatively complicated reaction, then is any reaction capable of consciousness? And at what point in time does a consciousness become a simple reaction or a reaction a consciousness?

If you describe the Human brain as a center of related reactions; the eyes seeing an event, the information transmitted to the brain, the brain deciding how react to the information, then the brain can be seen as a computer. Only, why do we ourselves perceive things around us? What makes us "us"? How many cells can we remove before we stop being "us", and where do we go from there? If this is true, we have about as much right to consciousness as the computer you're reading this on, or perhaps even as much right as a significantly less complicated machine.

The ability to make decisions is just being programmed to derive outcomes from questions in regards to known information and chemical bias. A balancing act of memories and capabilities versus a given challenge on a painfully complicated scale.

All of this makes me carefully ponder the following question: Do my Dwarves feel it when I light them on fire?

[Ampersand]

"(Allah) Rules the cosmic affair from the heavens to the Earth. Then this affair travels to Him a distance in one day, at a measure of one thousand years of what you count." [32:5]

I really wish people would try to research things a bit before posting things like that.

You really, really, reallllllly have to fudge the numbers to get a number anywhere close to the speed of light using that quotation.

Point One: The verse is not unique to the Qur'an. One can find the same idea in Psalms 90:4.

Point Two: Modern mathematics, with modern units of measure are used which are vastly different from the kinds of units used at the original writing.

Point Three: The researcher who proposed this theory points to another line mentioning the Moon orbiting the earth, and claims that this means that the Quran mentioned a scientific fact unknown to man, while ignoring the same passage claiming that the Sun orbits the earth. Nevermind that the moon was known to be a sphere oribiting the earth since the time of Ptolemy

Point Four: The mathematics relies on an Ad Hoc number plugged into the equation in order achieve C. Essentially, starting with the conclusion that the equation must equal C, and figuring out how to balance it such that it does.

So, no, arguments from that verse are meaningless.

In any case, moving on to the OP.


The argument fails Occams Razor, which is not "The simplest solution is most often correct", the popular but incorrect version, but is "Do not unnecessarily multiply entities."

Your argument is also a form of the Brain in a Jar argument.

First of all, I think I do see what you're really trying to do with this, which is to establish something you can hope toward past the inevitable end. I however feel that such memes are not only unnecessary, but sometimes even dangerous. I don't think it should be difficult to figure out why.

I would like to take careful note here, however for those unfamiliar with formalized logic that saying that an Argument is Invalid is not equivalent to saying that an argument is False. Claiming that an argument is invalid is absolutely not a claim on the truth value of the argument. For example, if I claim:

P:The Sky is Blue
P:Jupiter is in the Constellation of Orion from the perspective of earth
C: The speed of light = 299,792,458 m / s

The argument is invalid, not because the conclusion is not true, (it is), but because the conclusion does not logically follow from the premises. Moving on.

Here is the essential contradiction that invalidates the argument.

There is a fundamental problem with simulation. Suppose you want to accurately simulate an asteroid orbiting the sun. Is it enough to just have the asteroid and the sun for it to orbit? Of course not; there are far more gravitational factors interacting with real asteroids around the sun. Planets, asteroids, other stars, so on. If you really wanted to carry out an accurate simulation of the Asteroid orbiting the sun, you would have to simulate everything within the Asteroids 'Causal Domain', that is every possible thing that can potentially cause an effect upon the Asteroid. Of course, this ends up being the entire universe.

Including the computer carrying out the simulation.

If you want to claim:

"It is possible that we and our whole world are a thought process happening in the brain of a being of a world higher in hierarchy than ours."

Then you must accept that a supposed 'higher world' is also existent, and because it is simulating this universe, it obviously exists within this universes Causal Domain.

If we accept that your claim is true, then a simulation of this universe must also include a simulation of this supposed god doing the simulation.

[Muz]

"(Allah) Rules the cosmic affair from the heavens to the Earth. Then this affair travels to Him a distance in one day, at a measure of one thousand years of what you count." [32:5]

I really wish people would try to research things a bit before posting things like that.

You really, really, reallllllly have to fudge the numbers to get a number anywhere close to the speed of light using that quotation.

You don't have to fudge the numbers very much.
1 day = 24 hours
1 year is by the Islamic lunar year = 12 lunar orbits, because that was the SI for region it was written
Thus, it says distance traveled by angels in one Earth day = 12*1000 lunar orbits.

There's nothing to really fudge.

Being non-unique to the Qur'an should make it more accurate, as there's more references. Calculating with modern mathematics gets the answer accurately, as it should. You shouldn't be able to get a right answer with flawed math. The units of measurement are lunar years and a physical Earth day. There is no passage at all claiming that the Sun orbits the Earth; you just made that up. The adhoc number is also very, very specific.

Occam's Razor, buddy.. go with the simplest solution and you get the right answer.


Anyway, the exact number is not at all the point. Yeah, I think the concept of demiurges was what I meant. Didn't know about it until Vester mentioned it

The verse (and similar Christian verses?) doesn't say that "the affair travels to Him instantly". It mentions a very high speed, but not infinitely high. The whole point of my post was that God doesn't control the world 100%. He doesn't have to keep it all in his head, that's what the servants are for. But it makes me wonder - are the servants akin to neurons in our own head, or are they an external thing?