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The Physics of Miracles and the Problem of Evil
We may be bots in a reality-wide simulation, and perhaps the player(s) from above can violate our simulated physics when they want. In a more popular formulation of the same concept, called Religion, the player(s), called God(s), created our reality and can perform miracles.
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Posted by Peter Wicks on 06/29 at 05:32 PM
It seems to me that there’s quite a bit of motivated reasoning going on here. Yes the medieval philosophers were smart, but like everyone they were also motivated. They wanted to believe that God was both omnipotent and benevolent. That motivation still exists today, and as David Eubanks has pointed out (see his article under “hottest articles of the month”) motivated reasoning tends to work better in the short term than in the long term.
Certainly the problem of evil was one of the factors that made me lose my faith in e Christian belief system in which I was raised, and part of the reason for this was the one motivation that Eubanks flags as being necessary to neutralise the other motivations that constantly distort our cognitive processes: the motivation not to be fooled. That motivation remains strong.
Giulio, we agreed on another thread that logic and reason are tools, not ends in themselves, but also that they are very useful ones. At their best they can be used to elucidate otherwise obscure issues, to everyone’s benefit. At their worst they can be used to prop up false or unhelpful belief systems, in the same way that epicycles were used to resist (and delay) the Copernican revolution.
Not that any of this disproves your thesis. Sure, you can define “God” as a post-human programmer with basically good intentions, and “omnipotent” as “in charge of the simulation but still working with incompete resources and information”. Weird definitions in my view, but whatever. But it does raise for me the following questions. 1. Should we be trying to convince ourselves that there really is an omnipotent and benevolent God? 2. What does that do for us? 3. Isn’t there a risk that, in the process, we might end up fooling ourselves?
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 06/30 at 02:39 AM
Peter, I don’t think we should frame these questions as “Should we…” They don’t require a collective answer, but personal answers. The belief systems that we adopt to better cope with life, pursue happiness and motivate ourselves are personal choices. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. My answer to 1., 2., and 3. is “it is up to you to make your own choice.”
I wrote this article for those who want to believe, but are blocked by the problem of evil and the mistaken notion that belief and science are incompatible. To them, I show that belief can be formulated in a way that is perfectly compatible with the scientific method and our current scientific knowledge, and that the problem of evil is a non-problem when looked at from the right perspective.
Posted by Peter Wicks on 06/30 at 03:14 AM
I would put this somewhat differently: it’s not that, “Should we…?” is the wrong way to ask the questions, but rather that the answers are indeed likely to vary from individual to individual. I certainly agree with that.
But that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from reflecting on the questions collectively. Even if the answers vary, there might be some common conclusions that we can reasonably draw.
You say you wrote the article for those who “want to believe”. Different way of phrasing my first two questions in this context would then be, “If they succeed, will that make them happier in the long run, and more importantly will it increase the amount of happiness overall? What does this depend on?”
As far as the third question is concerned, the answer is always yes: there is always a risk that we end up fooling ourselves. One thing I liked about Eubanks’ article was the implication that, in the long run, happiness (both individually and collectively) is most likely to be achieved if we consciously try to reduce the extent to which we fool ourselves. This is why I think it’s important to increase our awareness of motivated reasoning, both in ourselves and others, hence my earlier comment.
But of course you’re right: what is best for one person to believe is not necessarily what is best for someone else to believe.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 06/30 at 03:39 AM
If one person is happier and nobody is less happy, the amount of happiness overall increases.
re “in the long run, happiness (both individually and collectively) is most likely to be achieved if we consciously try to reduce the extent to which we fool ourselves.”
I disagree. In sports, the only way to win against a better opponent is to deliberately “fool yourself” into _knowing_ that you will win. I think “winners” are those people who can easily practice this mental discipline (which is much more difficult than it sounds). And they are happier, and they make others happy too.
My belief system is based on the idea that _we_ will build God(s) and _we_ will resurrect the dead. These are tough challenges to say the least, and we need some motivation.
These goals are beyond our current reach, and the only thing that we can do is to ensure that our civilization survives, develops transhuman technologies, and spread to the stars. So, the motivation inspired by far future possibilities also extends to making the world a better place here-and-now.
Posted by Peter Wicks on 06/30 at 05:04 AM
Fooling yourself into “knowing” that you will win works in sports precisely because it reinforces short-term motivation. It would not work if you convinced yourself that you couldn’t lose four weeks before the event, because then you wouldn’t bother to train.
Regarding building Gods and resurrecting the dead, I would say that the main thing that gives you your motivation to promote is idea is that you like it. It’s not that you really believe it is inevitable. On the contrary, part of your motivation stems from the recognition that it might not happen. Otherwise, why do we need to make a conscious effort to ensure that our civilisation survives, develops transhumanis technologies, and spreads to the stars? It’s going to happen anyway.
Personally I’m less interested in building Gods and resurrecting the dead than in building happiness on a somewhat shorter timescale than will be required to achieve this kind of dream. I’m certainly glad that there are people like you out there promoting this kind of idea, but I still think it is important to reduce our tendency to fool ourselves.
I even wonder how accurate it is to say that successful sports competitors convince themselves that they will definitely win. My guess is that they enter a kind of hypnotic, focused state where the question doesn’t really arise in their mind. They may well have some kind of image of winning, of what it will be like, of how it might be achieved, which inspires and guides them in real time. And while they are competing they don’t actively doubt that they will win, because their whole attention is focused on achieving peak performance. But I doubt they waste mental energy convincing themselves that victory is inevitable.
Of course, convincing yourself that victory is inevitable is still a better strategy for achieving peak performance than morbidly focusing on all the things that could go wrong. But in a more general sense I’m convinced that the paths towards fulfilling our dreams pass also through those moments when we indeed consider what could go wrong, and take steps to prevent that from happening. And that, of course, requires precisely that one _doesn’t_ believe that success inevitable. Sometimes, we need to focus on the possibility of failure.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 06/30 at 05:35 AM
@Peter re “I doubt they waste mental energy convincing themselves that victory is inevitable.”
That’s why I say that the winner’s mental discipline is very difficult to practice. If you consciously focus mental energy to convince yourself that victory is inevitable, that means you see also the possibility of failure.
I guess winners (I am not one, so I can only guess) see victory as given, and just enjoy the process of winning. To some people, it comes natural. I am not much of an athlete, in sport or in life, but I remember some occasional episodes that confirm this.
re “the paths towards fulfilling our dreams pass also through those moments when we indeed consider what could go wrong, and take steps to prevent that from happening.”
This is not incompatible with optimism. I am cooking now and I know that the result will be delicious, but I do pay attention to using salt instead of sugar.
Posted by Peter Wicks on 06/30 at 05:50 AM
You know that the result will be delicious IF you pay attention to what you are doing. You also know that if you were to become so distracted, for example by exchanging comments with me, that you used sugar instead of salt the result would not be delicious.
It’s not that we should not be optimistic. Only that we should make efforts to limit the extent to which our belief systems are distorted by motivated reasoning. Optimism is, by definition, an example of motivated reasoning, and it is a distorting one. There are good reasons to be optimistic, but also good reasons to be cautious in one’s optimism.
Posted by Giulio Prisco on 07/01 at 05:15 AM
Don’t forget that distortion creates beautiful patterns out of dull and boring repetitive shapes, art and meaning.
The athlete who considers winning as given and enjoys the process of winning is adopting a model of reality where the probability distribution of different outcomes is skewed with respect to the “objective” distribution (whatever that is).
So what? This is a feature, not a bug. What matters in the end, is that the athlete wins.
Of course your statement “we should make efforts to limit the extent to which our belief systems are distorted by motivated reasoning” is true to the extent that it is plain common sense, but we should not let it clip our wings. Optimism is useful because it facilitates positive outcomes.
Posted by Peter Wicks on 07/01 at 07:14 AM
Agreed.
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