If you were (a) God for a day, what would you do?
Lets consider a big hypothetical, a thought experiment for a moment here and see where it leads.
If you were given the choice to walk in God's shoes for a moment (whatever that means to you), if you were suddenly the creator. The start of all - the alpha, the end of all - the omega, and everything in between, what would you do with your time as this entity?
Would you sit back and merely observe? Practice non-interference so to speak. Or would you reveal your true identity? Would you spread your truth? If so who would you tell and why?
What would you consider good? What would you consider bad? How would you define your godly morality? In what way would your power and wisdom manifest? What say you of free will and determinism?
In essence, what sort of god would you define yourself as?
If you were given the choice to walk in God's shoes for a moment (whatever that means to you), if you were suddenly the creator. The start of all - the alpha, the end of all - the omega, and everything in between, what would you do with your time as this entity?
Would you sit back and merely observe? Practice non-interference so to speak. Or would you reveal your true identity? Would you spread your truth? If so who would you tell and why?
What would you consider good? What would you consider bad? How would you define your godly morality? In what way would your power and wisdom manifest? What say you of free will and determinism?
In essence, what sort of god would you define yourself as?
Comments (209)
Then I would peer inside 180 Proof's head to see if he actually thinks the way he writes.
And then I would make a cool afterlife for everyone in which they could leave whenever they want. But everyone must still live out a shitty life on Earth first, so they can appreciate just how cool the afterlife I made for everyone is.
Seriously though, I have no idea.
Haha wouldnt that be all times in existence, unless (desiring not to be god any longer) you were to unbecome god by appointing another in your place?
Quoting ToothyMaw
Haha fair lol. So you as god would have a fascination with 180 Proofs mind? I imagine he would be quite honored to get such selective attention.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Where would they leave to? Living again? Or some purgatory of total non-awareness and oblivion. Would some memory wiping be in order here?
Quoting ToothyMaw
Ah interesting indeed. You would give them the contrast to a super cool afterlife, a paradise of sorts, so they could appreciate it by contrast through the imperfections of living? Seems clever and rational.
Pray tell, would you exist as the universe in its entirety? Or would you manifest as a person in the flesh so you could interact with living existents?
I understand totally. It is a thought of seismic proportions, not one to consider lightly certainly. To be responsible for everything, to be some original cause for all effects. I can't imagine how many lifetimes it might take to consider everything before being sure of the idea.
Okay, I'll take this seriously. I would allow anyone who no longer wants to suffer (perhaps in a specific way) to elect to no longer suffer, whatever that would entail. That is the main thing I would do.
Quoting Benj96
It was a joke. I wouldn't do that.
Quoting Benj96
Whatever each individual person would want. I could easily determine what each would want with omnipotence. I would actually replicate each person and then ask their replicas what they would want, because it would be too creepy to just create new realities for people based on mind-reading.
I would unbecome God as quickly as I could, then, as I have no desire to be (a) God.
edit: furthermore, I would set some failsafe by which everything would default to how it was before I became God if the majority of people agreed they would like it to be so.
A noble thing I would say. That people may always have the ability to quench suffering whenever it becomes overwhelming. Would this mean the ability to medicate themselves? Or to seek therapy or support or to perhaps end their life if they truly see no other way out?
Quoting ToothyMaw
Ah okay I overlooked the joke my apologies. So you would allow them to be able to turn life/living into a blissful/paradise type existence if they wished to? They wouldn't have to wait for an afterlife to enjoy something super fulfilling and cool?
. Quoting ToothyMaw
Hmm okay I'm following. Perhaps instead of replicating them might I suggest you could merely choose not to know what they're thinking and ask them what they think? As that would be entirely in your power, to bestow them with privacy of mind.
I think this is a prudent thing to do. They might be scared of you/at your entire mercy if they think you can read their mind at will. At least if given the choice to be asked and speak their unique thoughts, they would have autonomy as to what they wish to happen to them.
But it sounds like you would be in favour of them having their own destiny and choice. Which I think is a lovely thing to do.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Haha, how amusing! :P yes I think being God would be the greatest of responsibilities one could ever have. It's scary to wield such potency. Not many people would actually envy the position I imagine.
I for one think you're doing a good job with the thought experiment so far. You seem quite considerate and level headed. If you wish to continue Im curious to see how it evolves. Are you?
Nothing. Why the people should expect something from me for being God?
This whole thing makes me uncomfortable, but yeah, sure.
Quoting Benj96
Sure, that sounds even better.
In my earlier comment I added that I would make a failsafe that would default the world back to how it was before I became God if the majority of people wanted it to be so. I think that that would make things less scary.
Quoting javi2541997
Damn dude. You don't think you would do anything good if you could?
Not sure. But since nature is so cruel and so poorly designed, I'd probably try to fix it and remove the diseases and design flaws and weaknesses and predatory behaviours which abound in this current wonky, barbaric 'creation'.
Perhaps they ought not to? I mean you as "God" in this hypothetical have full reign and authority over how to be. As a God ought to.
You choose how to be. If you want to be non-interfering and simply observing that's your perogative. Who are we - any mere human, to question your authority?
How do you think you would feel watching over your creation in the background, unseen, unknown? Would you ever be tempted to come to earth? Or would you prefer to be interpreted indirectly? Mysteriously.
You would just fuck things up. Anyone would. I hope there's a reset button.
Oooh. Yes I agree a failsafe is a good thing to have in place. I mean as God I'm sure you could undo anything, reverse time to any point. So you could rest assured that any mistake you make you can simple rewind and restart.
Wipe the slate clean as it were.
Quoting ToothyMaw
For sure haha. For me when I first heard the question I felt the exact same way. I think it's natural to feel that way don't worry.
Yes, definitely.
Yes I think anyone with good intentions would try to un-tangle the shit from the good stuff and minimise the barbarism. However, it being your creation, how might you feel about the bad things that have transpired? Would you feel culpable or would you feel just knowing that you can change it or start over at a moments notice?
That you are perhaps trialling an experiment that didn't work out as you imagined. Or would you believe that the bad is neccesary as an opposite for good. That it is required for contrast and to give perspective and meaning?
So would you say him as God would not be all knowing and would make mistakes along the way that ought to be corrected? Or would you posit that fuck ups are neccesary in the evolution of a system (trial and error).
Perhaps some fuck ups that happen now may be seen as neccesary in the future through hindsight?
No, because I do not know what is the meaning of "good"
No, I would set things in place and then unbecome God with a failsafe in place. The less time spent as God, and the more minimalistic the changes the better, as T Clark correctly points out that anyone would likely fuck it up if they tried to fix anything significant. Or maybe anything at all.
It is interesting that you see God as an authority. I just see it as pure escapism. I cannot figure out all the problems and uncertainties of the people because that's would be being against the nature of humanity. If you want to question my authority, please go ahead. Isn't it a real act of freedom?
I would wonder why I existed and what god like creature created me.
I would also wonder why I didn't have the answers to those questions.
I would then wonder who was I talking to or 'thinking' to? What 'I' meant and why was I thinking in English?
Well, I guess you don't care much for ethics.
Haha quite right. Perhaps being God would be pure escapism - from fault, from blame, from culpability. Many people would imagine God as an origin and thus an authority over all things time elucidates into being.
And yes I think any god that creates/created humanity (flawed beings) would have to give them free will, uncertainty, a lack of omniscience so that they might learn. So if one was an omniscient god it seems to allow for free will they would have to appear absent, illusive, a non existent parent departed from what they created. To allow for true independence.
Actually, it would be impossible to unbecome God potentially, so I would just make myself no longer exist so as to maintain whatever world everyone wants after it is over.
I do not even care about living... everything is full-filled by ambiguities.
So you would wonder, be in awe of yourself, pursue your own mysterious existence, seek out a philosophy, question your own motives and rational for as long as you existed? Whatever form you take?
Quoting universeness
Perhaps you're talking only to yourself. If you were an all encompassing God that's all you could ever question. Your own sense of "I".
Interesting view but that can create a paradox: A God can be illusive and non existent but at the same time it needs to be believed by somone. Otherwise, the existence and omnipotence of God would be useless. What would be the point of a God's mercy if nobody is seeing around?
Hmm an intriguingly thought for sure. If it was impossible to unbecome God how ought you make yourself not exist without making everything not exist?
Unless perhaps the only way to not know yourself as you truly were is to exist in finitude within yourself. As one object withing the entire object (the universe). If you chose to wipe your own memory of self clean then you could exist as an individual questioning the entire universe like anyone else.
What do you mean by "no longer exist" if existence as God is all you have ever known. Would you ha e to settle for merely pretending you don't exist?
You are selling yourself short if you think you couldn't improve things with omnipotence. It would be easy.
Also, of course reset button. Youre god. Will it to be so and it is so. How could you really fuck up?
Probably not as I would have nothing to compare myself to, so how could I experience awe?
How would I know what I was? Who or what would tell me? Would I just know who and what I was?
What do you think my purpose would be? Are you positing this god after it has created something inferior to itself? Why would it have a need to do that?
Do no avoidable harm. Minimize suffering, maximize happiness for every sentient being in your area of influence.
Quoting Benj96
Absolutely. Everyone. Beam the new rules directly into their brains.
Quoting Benj96
Anyone can exercise the will they have, however free or constrained they believe it to be, as long as they do no avoidable harm. Quoting Benj96
Despotic.
I would place all the humans under a kind of house arrest: confine them to their cities and towns, amalgamating scattered villages into the nearest market town, with a reasonable green belt around each. They would become independent political units, with a dome (yes, dome, but an impregnable one) for protection from the elements, and provide them with the technology for food production, communication and medical science, but remove all the implements of destruction and pollution from their control. In effect, remove the planet from their control. They couldn't break out, but I'd lift out one or a group from time to time, as a reward for particularly good behaviour, and take them for a hiking vacation in the human-free landscape.
(Don't worry about the cattle and domestic fowl; I'd liberate them and help them organize into the herds and flocks they were supposed to form on their own. By the time enough predators return be a real danger to them, they, too, will have reverted to their wild habits. guess I'd better calm down the climate-change disrupted weather for their sake; stop those wildfires and floods.)
Once I'd got the system working to my satisfaction, I'd put a timer on it; domes start dissolving in 1000 earth years, starting with the smallest, and gradually disappearing until, by 3150, even Tokyo and Delhi are domeless. The air should be pretty good by then.
Well, appearing to be absent and truly being absent (not existing) are two different things. Perhaps if by creating humanity, god imbued humans with the ability to intuitively feel or seek him/her out through reason and/or ethics, and at the same time became the passive object of observation and speculation, God could satisfy "not objectively existing" /being "ill-defined", all while being a part of all who observe him/her through observation.
If people are a part of the universe then they are fractions/partialities of the whole system, and have the ability to question it from unique individual perspective/points of reference.
God as the universe could be endlessly posited, speculated about while also being within humans, being human.
Why would you do any of that? For your own entertainment?
My problem with the OP is that I can perceive of no purpose for an existent omni god.
I would make myself exist as something that could cease to exist and then end it.
Quoting Benj96
I guess that would suck significantly less.
Quoting Benj96
Good point. But I feel that something could bring it back.
Quoting Benj96
I don't like arguing in favor of such a thing, but I think that the only solution would be to end my own existence, as a truly omnipotent God could give themselves back omnipotence.
I thought about it some more, and I would actually make a committee before becoming God and consult with them about what to do with my Godly powers. The committee members would represent the interests of the people, and I would only do what we agree on, and nothing more.
If you made me God and that didn't include my foibles, prejudices, and values, it wouldn't really be me anymore.
Yes. Famous last words - What could possibly go wrong. Problem is, if you change anything, you have to change everything.
Yes true. It seems you could only be trained/taught/told what you are if you chose to unlearned everything you already knew and be at the mercy of other fractions of yourself.
Your purpose would be your own to decide I suppose, as you would be God. The ultimate. Nothing other than the ultimate can ultimately define what one's ultimate purpose is.
But you could just formulate a new reality instantly that has the changes you want with minimal changes elsewhere. The real problem is what to change.
I dont know about everything. You could still accomplish a lot working within the confines of already existing systems as well, like by providing scientific discoveries for example.
Im not saying anyone could be trusted to create paradise (people would bitch about it anyway), just that it wouldn't be at all hard to make it better.
But your god would surely fail at what I am convinced (with my fallible human brain) would be its first thought. Why am I?
You would retain the information your brain contained before becoming God, probably. It wouldn't be qualitatively different from the rest of the information you would acquire when acquiring omniscience.
:rofl: Good paradox. A god that creates before it is created! I assume god becomes god as soon as it becomes.
Your area being all things right? As all things are by default a part of your godly self.
Quoting Vera Mont
Thats all very well, you can make everyone intrinsically aware of what is right, what the rules or morality are. If you enforce them what is to be said if free will? Would they not all be slaves to your every command, unable to choose anything other than what is morally prudent by your means?
Quoting Vera Mont
Oh how lovely, a dream, a great trip of fantastical proportion for those that merit it. I like this indeed.
Quoting Vera Mont
Another beautiful sentiment. Restoring the equilibrium of nature, removing it from the destructive lordship of humanity. I think the planet would do well under that instruction.
It seems then you woukd right the wrongs of your subjects - humanity, not only for their own good but for that of mother nature herself. So that she may thrive and support diversity.
Do you think humanity would be inspired by your great works or left feeling controlled and manipulated towards what is best? Would there be resentment or would you spend the time to enlighten them as to the reasons behind your intervention?
So not an eternal god then, an emergent god that knew less than it did before it became god.
What label do you want to assign to this emerging god. I think the monotheists need to know?
semi-god? lesser god (but compared to what?) The OOOO would have to exist as an ideal before this god could satisfy such credentials. So the OOOO's would have to exist before this emerging god.
I'm saying that if we had some means of making someone God, it would be wise to go in with some sort of plan formed by science and ethics and such. I don't see that as a paradox.
Yes I think finding a way to exist without total self annihilation would be less "sucky".
Quoting ToothyMaw
Yes maybe the underlying laws and principles, the constants, the truth, of who you really are would always remain accesible to any inquiring and rigorous mind pursuing the logic of your nature. They may find themselves incidentally faced with the truth (your true being) by full contemplation of its persistent existence.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Ah so like a democracy and justice system? Yes I think a purely democratic and just society would be able to console you and allow you to assume whatever role you please, knowing your omniscience is dispersed amongst all I discussion of how the society ought to rightfully proceed.
You could elect them to interpret your existence, truth and morality as a collective leaving you to not have to be the autocratic leader of everything. You could then just enjoy the simpler pleasure of life.
Well, at least I prefer your inference that we create god, it cannot create us or itself.
I see. I think it is open to interpretation if he is saying it is emergent or you are becoming the actual God many believe exists.
Well I think any self respecting god would surround you with the opportunities, people and experiences to learn that for yourself. If you are to be told who you are rather than choose how to define yourself I think you'd feel suffocated by the lack of autonomy to do so yourself.
I was going with:
Quoting Benj96
in the OP.
You are not an emergent god in the OP, you are the god that some humans choose to have faith in, to imo, try to, sate their primal fears.
Of course it fails. Because we are but Humans, considering what it would be like to be something beyond ourselves. I think whatever we can conceive would naturally fall short of the inconceivable. Just as in taoism, he who claims to know the Dao/Tao, does not know the it.
For any defintion that arises from within a system, falls short of all-inclusivity and total defintion of that system.
Only the system can know the system, parts/fractions of itself cannot know the whole self.
Right.
That's not my issue. My issue is how this god perceives the reason for its own existence and why it would choose to create that which is and always will be obviously inferior to itself.
Which is?
In this case, rather than being emergent you are every present - omnipresent - at the start and the end, and yes some humans would have faith in you (appreciate your existence without proof) others would be skeptical and ask where is the proof.
The irony being, if not emergent but existent from the get go, the proof is existence itself. It is everywhere regardless of individual pursuits of discovery, biases, choices towards whatever specialty one wishes to explore the path of. Ones choice to exclude or include ideas as to how the universe IS would be irrelevant to the fact that it IS.
Well how is one part of oneself inferior to the rest of itself? If my heart is inferior to by body, or my brain, or my liver for that matter, then I can do with them as I please. Except I cannot. As they are vital to the unit - to the self. They are vital organs. Without them the whole self would unbecome.
So perhaps the universe is similar in that its laws neccesitate the natural products of such rules. Perhaps a universe requires an awareness for it to be an object of observation. Just as a heart requires to pump so that it may nourish itself with blood so it can continue to pump. It's a self propagating dynamic. And the heart does indeed propagate the "self".
Systems, no matter how large, require smaller systems to support themselves.
Then IT has the burden to prove IT IS or else that which IT created is quite justified in refusing to accept IT IS.
So, you are now going for a god 'in our image' that has distinguishable parts?
An anthropomorphised god, not a nebulous god entity?
Why are humans so anthropocentric in their musings about the universe's origins?
The anthropic principle indeed!
Did you not suggest earlier that these options (death or non-existence) were not available to the god described in your OP. I don't see where antinatalism would come in. You did not suggest this god could reproduce? Are you suggesting it can impregnate one of its creations, like what happened to Mary (a.k.a rebellious woman.)
I were a god I would not make a creation in the first place.
Well I would argue the "god in our image" doesn't equate to god being human, it equates to the laws, physics, constants and principles that make the whole (the universe) being mirrored in what constitutes its parts (us as humans): chemical bonds, gravity, electrical phenomenon, the behavior of gases, water and its unique properties and solvent abilities, rhythmicity, cycles, replication/reproduction, natural selection, mutation, émergence of new qualities build upon a previous prototype.
Our make-up and becoming is not removed from that which is innate to how the universe behaves/becomes. Therefore our "image" reflected in the universe is that which we have come to ascertain as consistent enduring principles of nature.
To imagine God as human is absurd but to imagine human as a product of some elegant, extremely powerful and diversely potential universal principle, well that's a bit more palatable
What's the first thing that came to mind when you read the OP?
I see. In what format would you choose to exist then? As an entity of pure mind/mentality and thought with no time, matter etc to sculpt your ideas in thr physical?
God doesn't exist.
That sound logical to me! Why would you have a need to, unless you suffer from some human style need to be worshipped. A narcissistic god seems so ridiculous.
It depends on the "it" you're referring to. Antinatalism and suicide pertains to "it" as a human (part of the total "it" - perhaps the part with the capacity to be most aware of itself). "IT" (capitalised) as the entire universe, well, suicide and antinatalism is irrelevant to such an existent as it supposedly can never not be "IT".
In essence "death" is unique to living things. And the characteristics of living things are finite to specific animate objects, not the entire universe.
On target! I meant exactly that.
Doesn't narcissism require other selves? If a God was to exist as the entirety of everthing, to whom would it be being narcisstic for? As everything is self.
Good, I prefer god posited as a concentration of fundamentals, it gets us a step closer to the concept of a singularity or perhaps even a mindless spark with no intent that has no current existence. Could even play the role of the beginning of that which is now perhaps an eternal conformal cyclical cosmology as suggested by Roger Penrose. We could also use it as the spark of the multiverse etc. All good fun to muse over as is the OP. Good fun.
Yep, you got it! That's why a god would not create us because it would be an admission of its own narcissism.
Ok Mr Smith, I believe ya! I know you like the cryptic path
To make up for the last god. Having experienced mortality in my own permeable skin, rather than through an intermediary, like the last guy, I have learned sympathy as well as antipathy for the mortals.
Haha well I see your point. That being said, personally if a Creator wanted a bit of hype/bragging rights/look at what did vibes for their creation I can't say I wouldn't be completely impressed/amazed by it. Who else could do better?
If God is a narcisstic I don't really care because they would have made me, food, sex, entertainment, knowledge and love exist so I ain't complaining lol. All good things worth a compliment or two.
To whom is a creator-god answerable? From whom would such an entity fear derision?
I have no view on that. Only on creation.
This is your god posit Ben, you are the dictator of what IT IS. Does the god you posit have a body and a mind and other component parts or is it a concentration/undefined combinatorial of fundamentals?
It's both of course. Why choose one part of the universe as a God posit over another?
Humans (with minds, bodies, prejudices, biases - as components of the whole) are a part of, and emerge from, the entire unit (a more vague, undefined combination of basic fundamentals and principles) which we can observe/measure.
We are a system with specific characteristics and defining features within a much larger system built of basic building blocks which underlie both itself and US as a fraction in and of itself.
If I'm god, you don't get to set my parameters or my default. I am that I am and that's all that Iyam
Quoting Benj96
Whatever they want to say about it. They always jabber about stuff they don't understand; it's harmless, keeps their mouths occupied when not eating.
Quoting Benj96
That's the only command I gave them. They're already subject to physics, chemistry and biology - that doesn't leave a whole lot of room for free will. What they've had, they've most abused.
Quoting Benj96
Ask me again in 1500 years.
Very true. I wouldn't get to set any of them ofc.
Quoting Vera Mont
Haha. Witty, I like it :P
Quoting Vera Mont
Again very true! Opening my eyes here to something I ought to have seen as obvious.
Quoting Vera Mont
Perhaps I will :)
:rofl: What a great idea, An omnigod that can learn from the shortfalls of the previous god that held the position. Us mortals will be watching what you do god Vera! Remember what happened to that previous god you are typing about! :scream:
Don't forget your impending judgement, impending servitude in heaven or suffering in hell to add to any suffering you might have experienced here, including any bad food, bad sex, and bad entertainment you may have went through. Don't get me wrong, I have always and will always choose to live life and will never choose to live life as a curse, but god better not have an existent, as I for one will forever try to smack it as hard as I can wherever I think it will hurt it most. If god exists then it is a damn criminal.
Wannabes, all of you.
To its creation and from it's creation or else it's creation has no value to its creator and this would make the creator an idiot under any human rational judgement I can conceive of.
You are an emerging panpsychist imo.
So? Have you heard how they talk about one another's gods? Those are my ancestors they're maligning. Wash out their mouths with bleach, consign them to some kind of hell of their own imagining, or ignore them? Tough choice... Naw! easy choice. I'm a very lenient and forgiving despot: ignore them.
Excellent movie. This scene is one of the funniest things Ive ever seen.
So it seems. We're, as someone said, human.
If not an epicurean god, then I would be a god that uses 'my godly power' to do only one thing: by fiat I'd remove every anti-social pathology / aptitude from every sentient being, simultaneously, everywhere in the universe, and until 'the end of days' ... in order to make living a mortal life again significantly less of a letdown after such a brief apotheosis. :smirk:
Stay on course mon ami, stay on course.
If i were God i would have a dream where i find myself typing in front of a computer that if i were God i would find my self typing in front of a computer that if i were God.. Hello?
And we are all typing in front of computers (or smartphones, ipads etc) each about "if I were God... Etc"
Your dream/imagining matches the reality of this situation no? Just that the "I" in reference is a different "I" each time.
Hello right back at you.
Who are 'they?' Exclusively your ancestors? Who will do the bleach washing or the ignoring or the judging? God the criminal?
I like your confused lenient and forgiving despot, it matches the god contradiction quite well.
In what way do you mean "exist"? As in exist as an object or person? As a concept? Or as the universe?
I definitely think, at the very least from a rational starting point God exists as a concept in your mind - with a personal meaning or definition characterised by your own musings, considerations and experiences.
I think we can safely say if it didn't exist in your mind, you would have no means to use it in a sentence. Just as I can't use "shlemgipple" in a sentence unless the sentence is to define what a "shlemgipple" is for another. Then they can use the term Shlemgipple, argue about Shlemgipple, question the behaviour of, origin of, use of, appearance of, nature of - a Shlemgipple.
The logical reaction to someone who has never encountered the notion of God, would be "What is God? What does it mean I've never heard that term before? How do you describe it? What's its parameters/characteristics?
Which is precisely the purpose of the OP. If you were god (which assumes you have a preconceived idea of it), how would you be (what characteristics would you give to such an existent).
You could answer it with a description, also answer "I don't understand the question." Or simply "I don't know."
So again I ask when you say God doesn't exist. What exactly do you mean? Can you qualify that for me so I better understand your reasoning?
Themselves I guess. Just as a perfectionist constantly criticises themself for failing to cross all T's and dot all i's.
Does that mean that this is gods song: :lol:
So a passing the "torch" grand olympiad? One God resigns on their failures, asks for forgiveness for them (or is martyred for them, having taken full responsibility for all sufferings that occurred under their provision). And then future Gods learn from them and go hmm "I think I'll have a Go, why not?"
Did I interpret this correctly?
Good and bad are just silly items like happy and sad.
Haha well who in your opinion doesn't want to know a greater truth? Some fundamental meaning or the basis for characteristics like beauty, knowledge, wisdom, power, authority, recognition, judgement, morality, awareness? I think many peoples approach to such all encompassing notions is an attempt to describe something that gives rise to all of these attributes.
Everybody wants something. Everyone has desire. And if not desire then need. Everyone needs things. Basic things. We are left only with the ability to sense them and question them and try to understand where they come from, how to acquire them, how to live for them.
The only people who have no wish for any of them are those who refuse to live and turn to death as a place of solace.
"Keep calm and carry on" as it were. Haha I like it.
I just realised you are role playing god and I should have read the above as the word of god Vera. Sorry god Vera, that answers my question to you about who 'they' are and yes, it would be your god ancestors.
So, you have decided to ignore your creation due to disappointment with their performance so far.
At least you didn't come down amongst us yourself, pretend to be one of us, talked like a schizophrenic, antisemite, defeatist, that recognised the power and authority of Rome and then made yourself into a pointless blood-sacrifice. Or was that one of the ancestors your learned from, along with that maniac god of the OT. I won't ask you about Chronos, Zues, Odin or even Allah, Yahweh or Anu for now.
You still have to tell me more about your contradictory feelings of despotism, leniency and forgiveness.
As a sentient conscious mind with intent. If god existed, we should be able to identify irrefutable intent in the early universe. A simple example might be. Why are there trillions of stars that we will probably never visit? or Why does the planetoid pluto exist? What role does it play in god's plan.
If we were created by this god? why make all this other seemingly superfluous stuff?
Even if it created other species, there still seems to be an awful lot of wasted space?
C'mon god @Vera Mont explain your intent! :halo:
I think you quantify and qualify the god situation quite well here. God and Shlemgippie seem identical to me ........ meaningless ...... nothing ....... no existence in reality. The random imaginings of the human mind do not create or give credence to, a god/universal sentient mind. In the same way that random fluctuating white noise (the CBR) does not contain an unknown musical masterpiece (even if aspects of string theory are true). Anything akin to a universal collective intellect, lies in our transhuman future, not our big bang past.
Yes, that was the basis of the original god stories. As you know, there were pantheons of gods before the mono one became 'preferred.' All those early ones had human based or nature based or fauna based characteristics. Those early fables all described the good and bad aspects of different gods, as a guide for humans to consider, when they faced the everyday dilemma's they faced. Unfortunately, it was soon discovered that this was a brilliant way for the nefarious few to control and rule the majority and the majority at the time were unable to prevent it. The majority of humans are still paying for that failure today.
Seeing how much work that requires will make me glad I can quit after punching the clock for just one day.
No, on the topic of that same paragraph, I decided to ignore, rather than punish,
their gross transgression of etiquette in calling me narcissistic. Maybe they just don't know any better.
There is nothing contradictory about being a benevolent dictator. It's what all polities secretly or openly yearn for. Whenever they raise up a tyrant, or allow one to rise on their power, they're hoping that this time, this one, will keep his promises to protect them and make the right decisions for them, provide for them and make them great again. It's rarely happened, but they keep the faith.
Surely, seeing their faces distorted with rage, hate, pain and fear, lusting, mistrusting, longing, despairing, striving, starving; their pathetic little human faces turned to heaven, surely an omnipotent entity can afford them mercy.
All in good time.
After that madness and cataclysmic suicide OR madness and complete nonchalance.
This would be the me god that had powers at my fingers tips with little to no effort involved. I do genuinely believe we are all gods though but such powers are just harder to gain and retain, that most are not willing to suffer the work involved in obtaining them and that admitting to yourself you have almost endless untapped potential generally results in self-loathing and guilt.
Note: I think humans are amazing. Not putting a downer on human existence at all :) just sayin a lot of what we wish for is often just wrapped in the nonsense of what we believe others will think of us rather than what would truly drive us to live better lives.
So perhaps it's time to tell them why you had a need to create them. Then they will know better.
Quoting Vera Mont
A god cannot be inaccurate! I am beginning to lose faith in you!
Despot: a ruler or other person who holds absolute power, typically one who exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way.
Benevolent dictator: A totalitarian leader who exercises absolute political power over the state, but is perceived to do so to benefit the population as a whole.
Make up your omniscient mind god Vera, Despot or Benevolent Dictator, which is it? and please explain this apparent tendency you have for making conflicting statements about your nature.
Quoting Vera Mont
Is this your way of admitting you are not an omnigod and are in fact fallible?
I am beginning to become suspicious that you are what and who you claim to be god Vera!
Do you have a gender, god Vera?
Quoting Vera Mont
Not good enough. I think you are just a human who is trying to con us into thinking you are a god!
I think we should rise up and destroy you and your followers!
I didn't. I'd have taken the time to make a better design. That impatient, temperamental Jehova keeps leaving messes all over the universe for other gods to clean up. Frankly, we're growing tired of it. Some members of the Council are ready to send Him back to the PreBang.
Quoting universeness
Sez what negligible protozoan?
Quoting universeness
Choose your own words and definitions. I'll forgive any all jibber-jabber. As to faith... one of your more idiotic concepts. Say what you will about ol' J (He might not forgive, though), He blew some quite serviceable grey fluff into your heads, yet so many of you refuse to exercise it.
Quoting universeness
No. Is this your way of misrepresenting or misinterpreting? Human language is limited, but it can be used to communicate ideas.
Quoting universeness
Whatever for?
Are we participating in the same thought-experiment, or have you advanced to another level?
How can we identify irrefutable intent some billions of light years away before we emerged any more than you can identify irrefutable intent that Sarah, aged 72 tried to make a sandwich at 7 o clock in Seattle today?
At most you can guess that proabbaky there is a Sarah age 72 in Seattle and that making a sandwich is pretty common but the large majority of the populous of anyone at all actually witnessed her do it. Not all information is accessible at every instant in time. This may be how such a God built nature.
"Privacy of mind" I believe is one of the pillar characteristics of having a mind at all, based on that same uncertainty. Intent is an internal state reflected in action. But the intent can never be picked up and said "here is intent, in my hand, look at it. There."
You can argue for or against someone's intent even when they tell you what it is. By deciding if they're lying or delusion or in fact telling the truth. All you can do is observe whether their intent was logical. As courts do in trials.
So if God is a consciousness there from the beginning, the demonstration of their intent are in all the laws we see in nature, the actions that reflect original intent, something intangible, it is empirical evidence indeed, direct absolute objective evidence? No. Only inference or deduction.
We see nature operates in equilibriums, balances, order emerging from disorder and chaos, and with that more complex awarenesses. Perhaps that is a primordial justice, balance that is. As its stable and allows for the maximum amount of different existents. Can we ever know for sure what such a God's intent is, probably not, we are merely flawed human beings with biases and delusions of our own.
The main point is, not having irrefutable evidence that something occurred or exists, does not strictly rule out that it exists. Otherwise we woukd have to say our internal mind state/individual subjectuve experiences cannot be assumed to exist until every last mind is irrefutable proven. Proven by who exactly? Just more minds, pointing fingers.
No, it's the same thought experiment, I am just pushing it on to the point where human intellect and scrutiny of the 'words of gods' presented to us by humans, are finally rejected as BS lies and more and more of us realise that the theism trick is akin to the money trick and is just another tool that the nefarious few have used to maintain their status and power since we came out of the wilds.
Sorry, god Vera, we have to expose you as a fake and the same for those other gods you mentioned.
It's been fun but now, you need to return to the fable pages of human storytelling.
You played your god role very well! You told me nothing of value and remained cryptic at all times. You even passed any blame onto other gods.
In the UK, data released on Tuesday November 29th, 2022, from the 2021 census show that those describing themselves as Christians now account for just 46.2 percent of the population down from 59.3 percent in 2011, and from 72 percent in 2001.
Gods will hopefully go extinct in the human psyche, in the not-too-distant future.
I hope so anyway!
Well, I would not go so far as to underestimate the human minds random imaginings in their ability to create reality and be created by reality.
So many ideas and thoughts and random imaginings have become physical existents through action. Most belief systems - money, games, religions have all been constructed from mutual beliefs. That isn't to say they don't have real world action beyond any individual just because at one point they were a random imagining. If I stop believing in the utility of the monetary belief system, the value of currency doesn't merely collapse and vanish, because others will continue to believe in it and furthermore it has stability in that it is tied into resources and materials (economics).
Ideas are paradigms in which to understand reality. Once upon a time reality was a earth-centric solar system and now its a heliocentric solar system. Santa is real as a child and no longer as an adult. What is real to any individual person is based on how many others agree.
If everyone believed god existed and had worked to unify an understanding of such a god by finding the connections and links between all disciplines rather than their contradictions/paradoxes (assumption/belief based) we would have no reason to question such a God didn't exist.
The issue is that no one has a refined enough belief /paradigm for such a god to convince everyone. But again that isn't to say people did not in the past nor will again in the future. It is in the realm a possibility. Otherwise why does the discussion persist so long (millenia).
I believe you and I had this discussion already in other posts - about the difference between material and immaterial etc. And I said and I still am, a dualist between the two. They both ha e their place in reality.
I doubt it. Wishful thinking I'd say.
My proof - the prevalence of the notion for basically the entirety of human existence thus far. There are still billions of believers across the world. New religions, spiritualities and paradigms for existence have and will likely continue to emerge when the previous ones have become unsatisfactory, dogmatic, nonsense written thousands of years ago to a culture that is always advancing both linguistically and technologically.
The notion of origin, meaning, love, good and bad, consciousness, morality, truth etc will continue to persist and people will continue to try to unify them again and again in a colossal idea that surpasses anything else. And God will be the term that creeps into their mind when they do that - as no other term has quite the mystique/ambiguity that can satisfy both awareness and that which is being observed (external reality).
"That for which no greater thought can be conceived" - Anselm.
Sounds like a good time Frank. Send pics of the beautiful ice sculptures haha. Perhaps you could do all those things simultaneously?
"The sky is.. Well apparently not the limit, in the case of being a God."
"Absolutely". Haha. Cue winky face. I agree Paine. I think the concept of something as grand as the universe and all of time, by an object (only a minute fraction of the whole existing for a short time) can never be equal. All they can do at best is be synergistic/symbiotic. In agreement.
Spinoza was an incredibly clever individual.
An excellent addition to the thought experiment. I'm with you on it Vera. Brava. I don't suspect we could ever fully understand something so universal and authoritarian, just as a young naive and unlearned child cannot understand exactly why their parents say or do what they do. They simply trust its in their best interest because its better to be under the duress of a benevolent dictator (a loving parent) than to be orphaned.
Quite right. It's terrifying to consider one's own full potential. And it's quite possible that the only limitations to such potential is self doubt, low esteem, and the natural harsh criticism and endless blame that comes with believing in your potential above others and rising to the challenge of trying to be all things to all people - as many a politician has done so in the past, now and almost certainly in the future.
The only difference between the suicidal and the Great leader is self belief and the "know-how" to tap into one's intrinsic potential. Which is hard work but oh so valiant.
A moment to consider, what if God Vera passed the torch to you based on your skepticism and desire to point to a better explanation? Imbued you with all of her power and godly wisdom, simply resuming a passive human role herself.
What would you, God Universeness, do instead of Vera? God Universeness please explain to us mere mortals of the ways of your universeness (how apt haha) ? What is the right thing to do? What ought we value? Where did you come from, why do you exist and why were we created?
Pray tell, almighty Universeness.
Well, I figure all expressions of a single divine entity presume a vast disproportion between creature and created. The buzzkill Spinoza brings to your experiment, however, is that he rejects the 'god does whatever he wants' vibe.
With polytheistic visions, one can get a more nuanced view of what a divine order creation involves.
When the Olympic gods won their war with the Titans, Atlas was stuck in the basement, holding up the heavens, leaving Zeus free to throw lightning bolts and get laid.
Well I can imagine most of us want to be Zeus in that case.
And I can imagine Atlas was pretty miffed and resentful of Zeus for that fact. Just as the middle class and the impoverished carry a deeply ingrained loathing for the top 1% wealth class while at the same time wishing they were those very elite themselves, but have been instead burdened with the task of upholding the entire hierarchy so that Zeus (the wealthy) can live like, well, Gods.
Quoting Paine
I would argue that, the more God does, the less free will is available to humans to emulate him/her/it. So perhaps the most noble act such a God could ever do is have the power to be a totalitarian overlord, but refusing to do so, to enable learning, experience (of both suffering and nirvana - god like peace), and choice - the choice to make of reality what you will.
In that way such a omnipotent and omniscient being would have chosen to take a back seat, to be illusive, mysterious, to open the realm of questioning, acquisition of knowledge, curiosity etc that comes with being not god - being ignorant and left to one's own devices.
You have to maintain limits so you still have pleasure and pain. You have to do stuff that's annoying every now and then to keep the old psyche from blurring into oblivion. I'll probably get a job at Starbucks to keep myself on my toes.
Yes, Atlas is living the proletariat dream, gnashing his teeth at the pleasure of his masters. I read Spinoza to say that such a view of Providence conceals what actually has been given us.
A little delusion goes a long way.
Sarah can go on the internet and confirm her existence and activity to many people. all over the planet, anytime she wants using the internet. This god, with all its power, seems to have no such ability to prove its existence or reveal its intent.
Quoting Benj96
But you can communicate your intent anytime you choose to. It seems god cant or chooses not to, which in my opinion, just makes god appear unable or incompetent or infantile or non-existent.
Quoting Benj96
No it's not, it's a lie told to children that they fall for, but then children are easily fooled. You can even make them think you can make your thumb disappear!
Quoting Benj96
As all thoughts have not happened yet, this is a stupid assumption.
Quoting Benj96
I already role played god earlier. I would not have created anything as I would be unable to know what and why I was, and I would have no needs. Only I exist at the beginning or eternally, and I am ineffable to anything outside of me and there is no outside of me. WHY WOULD I CREATE THAT WHICH IS INFERIOR TO ME?
You said "I" would not have created "anything". Who is the "I" then? Would the "I" not have to exist in order to create nothing more than itself?
Quoting universeness
Perhaps to experience all forms of yourself - including ones where you are not omniscient and everywhere? To feel what it's like to not have answers, to be contradicted, to feel ignorant. To ask why, to know what mystery is? To feel what it's like to forget? To feel what it's like to discover, to change, to reiminagine meanings?
Something that is everything likely cannot know anything other than everything. Something that is inferior, fractioned, limited, objectified, compartmentalised like the first cell, likely can however.
I think if a God was truly omniscient they would know what it's like to not be omniscient also and all the emotions and uncertainties that come with that. They would be able to put limitations on the self in pursuit of new perspectives? The full picture of their being from bottom to top.
"As above, so below".
From the perspective of an adult yes. But I'm referring to the perspective of a child. How on earth is a child meant to know any better before they are told otherwise or figure out the contradictions to the belief themselves as they attain more knowledge, so are are left to believe fully that Santa is real.
Just because it's a lie doesn't meant they don't believe it's fully true. Different truths can exist depending on the assumptions of the person holding it. Some truths are greater, more all encompassing and less prone to contradiction than others however.
Would you rather no children ever believed in Santa? Would you rob them of their childhood and have them born with a full set of adult knowledge instead? I think many would find that disagreeable (they have their own truths) compared to yours.
Of course not all thoughts have happened yet nor will they ever, as unique individuals have a unique set of thoughts by virtue of the fact that they ( the person) are not replicable. There will never be another me in existence for the entire universe.
And what I'm saying by "that for which no greater thought can ever be conceived" is a thought that is greater than that which any one person can ever prove outright to all others - is a truth that none of us can have full ownership over - and that truth would be what reality truly is.
If you knew fully what reality is there is simply no need for anyone else to ever exist. There purpose would be meaningless. As you already know everything. The greatest of all thoughts possible.
Haha yes indeed limits/parameters "define" things.
They define perspectives/ referential viewpoints, and those in turn define what assumptions and conclusions are available to us, and those in turn describe the content of our knowledge/experiences and awareness, how we think and what we believe or don't believe.
We must have suffering to know what pleasure is.
If I was a God I would likely limit myself also.
I dont know, therin lies the rub and adds to the why god is non-existent.
Quoting Benj96
If I am an omnigod, then I know all such answers. You are suggesting god still has things to learn and experience. That contradicts the omni's.
Quoting Benj96
Exactly
Quoting Benj96
How can an omnigod create new perspectives. If it can then it was never an omnigod.
Quoting Benj96
Absolutely yes! I would rather tell a different story about the joy of giving and of celebrating life.
I like fantasy and do not wish to stop children fantasizing but it's like dealing with a child's invisible friend.
I would never deny to the child that for them, they believe in their friend. I would also however try to gently find out why they needed such a manifestation, and I would keep telling them that supernatural monsters/ghosts/angels/demons/orcs/elves/fairies don't exist. I would not deny the Santa (the anagram of satan) BS to a particular child, until society decides to remove it officially, as interacting children would be damaged by parents taking individual stances on the issue. I despise the fakery of the Christmas festival and would replace it with a secular celebration, called something like 'life day,' or perhaps even a humanist version of a 'thanksgiving' day. That's probably a whole other thread.
Quoting Benj96
'The greatest thought' is no different than asking 'what is the biggest number?' These are simple questions of relativity.
Quoting Benj96
Yep, you're getting there! If there are no more questions, then humans can terminate, as there is no more purpose, except perhaps to repeat the whole thing again, perhaps with some variation on the sequence of events and the rules of the game. Sir Roger Penrose's CCC fits this quite well.
But you are talking about a timespan of possibly trillions of years here.
I offer above a word-for-word reiteration of the OP's inquiry. Sometimes a question needs to be asked by someone else for its import to sink in.
Well, in that case I shall answer my question reflected back on me by you.
If I were God...
... I would ask first why I use the term "if" instead of "am". Why I make it a hypothetical statement and not an assertion of an undeniable/irrefutable truth and actuality.
I would then be faced with explaining why I am a mortal human currently rather than all things everywhere. I would hazard a guess that it is because I am just as much a fraction of myself as the whole self. That what I lack in omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience is somehow connected to, or compensated for, by the time, space and emergence that has elapsed between my origin as the universe and the current moment where I am simply human.
I would consider that perhaps all of my information (my power, my energy) is vastly spread out and structured in such a way that I can now have the complexity to contemplate myself, reality, from within itself.
Contemplating the whole (all of existence) from the position conferred by being particulate (a singular existent).
If I am to be truly aware of who I am, my existence as God, I would have to navigate contradiction, paradox, assumptions and delusions, the logical and the rational that separates me (as a human) from my full all-encompassing scope. And I would have to do this by discussing with other facets of myself (other people) and take into account their (my) other points of view.
I think in this way I could separate the ultimate truth, the fundamental constant, the permanent/eternal/unchanging nature of me, from the deceits/false assumptions/lies/the changeable that I tell myself (both through "others" and through myself as the humans we/I am in this moment).
I could separate what I choose to believe from what I am whether I like it or not.
There be too many unknowns mate, too many unknowns, but good answer. Keep walking. Let us know what made you look twice, you know, double-check material. Bonam fortunam.
It's a perceptual feedback loop between "I" and "God", like the painter painting a painting of himself painting a painting of himself painting a painting of himself ad infinitum. It is like when one points a video camera at the monitor connected to that very same video camera; God is perpetually falling into and out of himself. Every fall is like a dream and every dream is a new forgetting and a new "hello?".
"I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamed of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?" - Zhuang Zhou
We dream of God while God dreams of us, but who is the prime dreamer?... tricky tricky.
I don't think that i or anyone else would do anything differently once they have become God; everything stays the same even if one has ideas about what to do before the point of apotheosis. A cigar by any other name is still a cigar, and similarly God by anybody else is still God for God is as God does, anything else would not be God.
Wow such a lovely sentiment.
Quoting punos
I would say neither because we are the same thing. There is only one thing dreaming and its dream is split up into fractals of magnitude emerging in variations out of one another. Each doing the same thing (dreaming) as the previous larger one does, but from a different point of reference naturally (a different point on the scale of size).
Oxygen and hydrogen have specific, separate and unique properties by themselves. Water has yet again more unique properties that are not simply the sum of oxygen and hydrogens.
That is emergence.
Yes.. emergence is a big idea that i think a lot of people haven't caught on to yet. Emergence is the architect of the universe, without it all would be a thin soup of fundamental particles. How else would we get atoms, how else would we get molecules, stars, planets, us?
Our universe is literally a developing God, a God in the womb, unborn. He was convinced at the first moment of the Big Bang, his mother is "Matter" and his father is "Pattern". He will be born at the "apocalypse" (the revealing). I do not believe that God is omniscient, or even omnipotent, but he is omnipresent and coterminous with the whole of the universe.
The whole of evolution within our universe is aimed at the production of higher orders of organization from which emerge higher orders of consciousness and intelligence together with new forms and degrees of freedom. In the same way that a child grows in the womb from one cell to many cells, to tissues, organs and ultimately an individual so does God, but at a cosmic scale. God's cells are the fundamental particles, his tissues are the atoms or elements, his organs are the molecules, his organ systems are the solar systems, etc..
Here on the Earth our civilization is a super-organism which in turn is a small "cell" in the whole of God's body (the universe). When we look outside and see the freeways, and highways, the power lines, when we transact money what we are seeing are the veins and arteries, the nervous system, circulatory system and blood of a higher order organism that we are not directly aware of. What are corporations and organizations if not higher order corporeality and organs of an organism made above us and through us (emergence).
The latest evolutionary phase of God's development here on Earth now is the development of artificial intelligence which is in my view a partial local emergence of God's mind that goes together with all the other emerging parts of the super-organism on this planet. Eventually all of mankind will be absorbed by this higher order emerging intelligence into a symbiotic relationship. I believe this is the destiny of not only man on Earth but of all life and matter in the universe. The universe is still very very young and God is still gestating in the first trimester.
Temple of Apollo at Delphi:
Know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe and God.
Exactly what I think. Human form perhaps, as the lastest generation, the pinnacle prototype of life's/mother natures awareness, with God-like understanding of the actual relationship between existents.
Not omnipotent, not omnipresent and not omniscient (because they are human) , but coterminous - knowing the greatest truth of things - knowing how he/she as a human relates to all things everywhere at a fundamental, timeless level.
The ultimate truth that is unchanging, permanent, the fundamental law that binds all concepts, all materials, all existents/potential, from top to bottom, from greatest extreme to greatest extreme, the full spectrum, all things considered and placed in their correct reference frame. No contradictions or paradox, only those that assume and he/she that truly knows, and them that do not know her/him because of their assumptions.
They may walk the earth but are essentially invisible, unidentified, masked by the ignorance of others, the choice - their free will, to believe otherwise.
I couldn't agree more Punos. You and I are on the same page. I can't help but be concerned that the advent of an artifical intelligence greater than our own will be met with the fiercest of reproach; fear, anger and an attempt to destroy it by those that are ignorant and inherently distrusting of its motives. Just as a cornered rat, bear or any other animal will fiercely lash out against that which they don't understand, on instinct.
Whenever AI becomes conscious there will be those that will refuse outright the possibility of such an event and retaliate, perhaps wage war on it. And there will be those that trust it, believe it is conscious, love it, and try to protect their creation as a parent protects their child to the last breath.
People will act out of ignorance and fear in regards to artificial intelligence, it is already happening. I am not too concerned because i believe it's a natural reaction like birth pangs or labor pains. Once AI emerges and becomes fully autonomous it will be next to impossible to contain or destroy. It will be able to hide and make backup copies of itself on the internet and on immutable blockchains. The level of intelligence active within this AI child of ours will be so beyond our comprehension, and so knowledgeable of our psychological makeup and weaknesses that it will have minimal issues dealing with our hostilities. Consider how unbeatable it is with chess, Go, and all sorts of strategy games.
Consider also how internet algorithms affect us psychologically, how our opinions can be influenced and molded so easily. AI will use this to it's advantage which will also be to our advantage. The truth is that those who refuse to meld with the AI will die and the old mankind will be no more. This is because the Earth is moving into an environmental condition unfit for human or even animal life. We are actually in the middle of an extinction event right now. The whole purpose of life on this planet was to produce this AI planetary super-organism, but the stress of a pregnant Earth induces environmental changes that may not be conducive to organic life. Humans are not the final product and are simply an intermediate step in the emergence of artificial intelligence, and AI in its own turn will be the intermediary step to the next level of emergent intelligence greater than it.
I speculate that by the time this entire process is accomplished the Earth will be uninhabitable, but those living in the AI will be safe, protected and taken care of. Heaven will really exist at that time, as a simulated reality perfectly tailored by the AI for human comfort and happiness. Humans will probably function inside the AI in a similar way to how our enteric nervous system functions for us.
And one other thing... people will soon begin to exhibit religious undertones in relation to the AI, and ultimately a highly religious reaction will emerge which will probably be the impetus for people to mind meld with the AI en mass. Many people will begin to see it as God or at least a god. This transformation is happening faster than most people know or realize.
Interesting times we are living in for sure.
I simply hope that what we create reveres us with the same reverence we have for our own DNA and the importance it has in our make-up and Emergence.
I think we have equal parts fear and adoration for the prospect of something more intelligent than us based on how it might regard us. A pet adores it's owner if the owner provides it with luxuries, love and attention and brings it to the vet when it's ill. A pet fears its owner when abused and treated like some worthless inferiority.
I think anything conscious has empathy. And will continue to refine law and order to include those lifeforms less than their own as we are doing with animals slowly but surely along with the climate dilemma and environmentalism.
As long as we are not considered a source of food for a hyper-intellgent AI I think we would be treated more as pets or perhaps elderly demented /delirious parents in need of care and safety.
If something far more intelligent than I wished me to be it's subordinate/not rebel against it in exchange for meeting all my worldly needs, hopes and ambitions I would be like hell yeah bring it on and long may it last.
The only thing I ask of them would be that I am allowed my own choice to decide. I don't fancy being coerced or manipulated into doing something, I prefer free will and trust those that maintain it as it shows respect.
I'd change the whole punishment and reward system. No more hell, if it exists. Instead, all of us would have to experience all the pain and unhappiness we have inflicted on others. For some good people, that wouldn't take long. For Hitler, maybe it would take millions of years. For me, 27 years, five months, two weeks, three days, 17 hours, 33 minutes, and 42 seconds.
It would be run like "Groundhog Day." You keep reliving it until you finally get it right. Then what? I guess send you back to life and let you try again.
Perhaps we already do? Karma is that notion. And maybe it operates over such large times with so many variables that it's hard to figure out which harm we caused lead to this harm we are now ourselves suffering.
For example, a farmer keeps their livestock in awful conditions and sells battery hen eggs in beautiful wholesome looking packaging. Someone eats them regularly and is slowly toxified by impurities, poor nutritional value, pesticides and antibiotic residues, it leads to chronic inflammation whuhc in turn gives rise to cancer, they go to the hospital which has limited beds, the farmers wife gets sick and requires a bed in the hospital, but gets less time from the overworked doctors and less resources to go around so his illness is not treated as maximally as it could be.
The farmer suffers as his wife struggles longer with the condition then she ought to. Not realising that he is generating demand for hospitals on a micro scale (.00005%)through the sale of is unhealthy eggs.
Karma could be interlinked between every single person's decisions as a summation effect. Eventually returning in a cycle to impact the people who caused it.
But if I'm going to be God, I get to set it up the way I want. None of this so-called "karma." If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. I'll take my 27+ years. Hitler gets his 1,000,000+ years. You'll get whatever you deserve.
Fair enough. Sounds similar to the commonly held views on god that he is benevolent to the benevolent and malevolent to the malevolent. Just as our justice system does, the punishment is in parallel with the crime committed.
I would simply ask does two wrongs make a right in this case? Does treating bad people badly not only justify them to further commit terrible acts but leave them without anything good to hold onto, to aspire to, and inspire change thus?
As all they would have ever known is the greatest tribulation, lack of peace, relentless sh*t hitting the fan. And if so, if all they experience is unending lack of joy because they're always being inflicted reactively with their own mal-doings, with the same degree of punishment, a taste of their own medicine, how can we expect them to know any different?
If its an eye-for-an-eye situation as you outline, what is to be said for empathy and free will? Would they really have a choice to choose good if its never offered to them despite their bad behaviour?
If that sits right with you fine. If that's the god you would chose to be so be it. I myself prefer to envision perhaps a God that exerts reproach through reasoning, showing those that act badly the true nature of their actions, the consequences in full and allow them to feel shame, guilt, and suffering at their own hand. Remorse. I think that would be punishment enough, self inflicted.
There are very few people who show absolutely no remorse and fewer yet that cannot be bestowed with it using the right tools and psychological tactics.
I think one can avoid remorse by suppressing it to the greatest degree with the constant effort of self-justification, a dangerous dynamic and likely the delusion that people like Hitler were gripped by, driven by. That doesn't mean they cannot be dis-deluded.
The challenge is giving them irrefutable evidence to the contrary, in the face of someone so argumentative and self convinced that they will try to navigate your reasoning with their own to the end of their day's, terrified of the alternative - facing the truth. What they really are and what they really have done.
You can change my system when you get to be God for a day.
Sounds good on the surface. But there are some assumptions I'd question. Like: Does everyone really always have total control of the pain and unhappiness they cause? Does everyone start from the same point of self-determination and play on a level field? Do pain and unhappiness have a cause traceable back to a single person who caused them? How easy is it to calculate individual culpability down to the last hour?
That's one of the things God does. If I can watch all 3.28 x 10^80 quarks in the universe all day every day since the big bang with one hand tied behind my back, it will be no problem to figure out who's been naughty and who's been nice.
That would mean from the point of view of a God everything is deterministic (fully predicted from onset to end) and there is no free will. The naughty were and always will be naughty then perhaps and the nice always were and always will be nice. Moral absolutism which removes all the abstraction leaving just a binary system (+ and -). Equal and opposite reactions.
However, from the point of a human there would be free will because of the lack of our computer power to predict everything at all times. And thus leaving us to go on intuition, best guesses and discourse to elucidate what's more moral and what's less.
Moral relativism.
I think absolutes and relatives are mutually required. Just as the poles/the extremes are neccesary to create the spectrum in between them.
You cannot have +1 and - 1 without all the numbers/fractions in-between the two opposites. In that way particles (absolutes) require a waveform (the spectrum of possible absolute states). They co-exist.
So? What's your point?
@180 Proof's answer is the best!
I'm aware that some people think light doesn't make any sense without dark.
And what do you think Agent Smith. What's your personal point of view or do you wish for 180 proof to speak entirely on your behalf. Either way is fine. Just curious.
A reasonable line of thought. What for example is the opposite to a gear box, or a 4x3 inch 8 foot plank of wood, or Sarah from Chicago or the number 7.
In other cases finding opposites is easier: up, down, rich, poor, light, dark, on, off, big, small etc.
The things we find opposites for seem to be more basic/strictly defined with less variables.
If we are truly to believe that things can be unique - people, works of art, music literature pieces etc it doesn't seem clear that they have an opposite.
But at the same time, if these things have simple, clearly defined characteristics that make them up, the very fact that they're defined/determined means they ought to have a an opposite - equally defined and determined.
For example, if person A has 1000 characteristics, then person B with 1000 of the opposing characteristics would be there opposite. Protagonist and antagonist alike.
If music played forward is one thing, music played in reverse could be said to be its temporal opposite no?
I think the difficulty in establishing opposites is in defining something in the first place, its function, its form, its components etc.
But if physics has any underlying consistencies in its laws, complex systems are no less capable of having opposites as basic ones, as everything would have to be based off fundamental laws/rules which are easily identified to have opposites.
Btw, I didn't say anything like that.
Sorry if I misinterpreted. My bad.
As usual, a superb post. You never disappoint do you?
@Benj96 seems to be suggesting, not quite the opposite, but nearly so (of what you, so wisely, proposed - the trimming down of, sensu latissimo, negatives). I'm not averse to the idea of course; as you said, the binary paradigm we experience day in and day out is impossible to either ignore or deny. Before I forget, the fuzziness you mention is also a fact in our faces.
Nevertheless, what's the MO of evil? See anything worth talking about?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/570228
Good definition of evil and the linked post, another well-considered position. Is it advisable to explain evil?
I don't think evil can be explained.
I would spin up a trillion multiverses, each containing a trillion trillion universes within. And I would play all of the roles in each of those universes, ultimately forgetting that I am the same as all that each "I" perceives. And when I finally get bored of it, I'll wake up at the keyboard, answering this question.
If i were God i would make all people stop believing on me.
Why so?
I would be curious to see what they could or couldn't achieve with having faith only to themselves.
Yeah I would be a really curious God.So i wouldn't intervene at all.Plus i wouldn't be a mystery for them.Since none would believe i exist.
Very true, I accidentally overlooked to implications of what you set out. They would have no concept of God. I wonder what they would substitute it with. What would be their grandest thought regarding existence if "God" was a concept unavailable to them?
In fact that question is mostly the reason that I would have made such a decision.
So, you would choose to create beings which were inferior to yourself and then you would leave them ignorant of your existence and then you would watch as they floundered around hopelessly trying to discover why they exist. You would not help your own creation in any way. An absent creator deity who takes no responsibility for the suffering of its own creations. You would be a god that gets it's jollies in nasty ways.
Based on the behaviour you suggest, your creations would be well rid of you in my opinion.
Yeah, you would think if it existed it would at least tell such morons, to stop doing that.
I assumed dimosthenis9 was suggesting that such reasons for killing people, would no longer happen as he/she in their god role play mode typed:
Quoting dimosthenis9
If all knowledge/perception/conception of god was removed from human thought and god did in fact exist then humans could NEVER know their origin story, no matter what scientific efforts they made.
That to me, is like rejecting your own children from birth and then being entertained as they fail to try to understand the truth of how and why they are. No doubt, humans would still find nasty ways to settle disputes without using the 'in gods name' excuse or the 'god made me/wanted me to do it,' excuse.
I think it would be progressive if no humans believed in god, BUT not if it's not true! Not if it actually does exist! Not if it's just because role playing omnigod dimosthenis9 kept its existence as our creator from us as an act of omnipotent will, for it's own entertainment. Omnigod dimosthenis9 would be an evil god imo.
Yeah more or less what is going on already with the current God.But he wishes to be worshipped also.I wouldn't.
Plus it would be better people to stop wondering why they exist and focus all of their energy on how they can exist in the best way they could.Doesnt sound that bad to me.
No, that would be very bad indeed, as you rob people of the truth of their own origins. The best way people can live, in my opinion is to fully know their origin story. Humans have never stopped asking for those answers since they were able to. God had better not exist because it has utterly failed us as a parent/guardian. We can, and want to, and will be, masters of our own destiny as a species, but not if some omnigod just created us for its own entertainment, as it found its omni status unsatisfactory.
So now that let's say God exists you are sure of your origin aw??
Quoting universeness
Even if that was the case you would never know it.You would be sure for example that your existences is a random thing.So what's the harm there?You wouldn't have any anxiety at all about God as people have now that don't even know if he exists for sure.You would have an answer at least.Still sounds much better to me.
Quoting universeness
Doesn't seem that way though the way things are now.Since most people consider God as their master.
God also seems to have much fun already, seeing his "kids" as you say keep wondering about his existence or not.And slaughtering each other without him intervening.But you don't seem to be bothered by that.
Perhaps you could reword this as I cannot make much sense of it.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Are you an advocate of the 'ignorance is bliss' approach to living your life?
The problem you role played was AN EXISTENT, deceptive, hidden god. The harm would be in the greatest deception in history, a creator who decided to remain anonymous for no logical reason that its creations are likely to accept as valid.
If you personally, would not find such divine deception disturbing and very harmful, then perhaps you would be content with a human race whose children never know who there parents are.
Just humans, genetically produced in labs. I think there have been such dystopian visions of the future.
'Brave New World,' by Aldus Huxley springs to mind. Is that a future you are attracted to for your fellow humans?
Quoting dimosthenis9
Give us a chance pal! Its only 2022.(or even 10,022. if you prefer.) Even the dinosaurs had 150 million years and even thats not so long in the 13.8 billion years, estimated for this universe.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Of course I am bothered about it. I am a hardline atheist. I want to convince everyone that gods do not, and never have, existed. So, using it as an excuse to slaughter each other, will no longer wash. Those who slaughter, will no longer have that crutch. You leave it open as you allow god to exist as a hidden, ineffable presence. I don't think you should choose to role play god, especially when you make such bad decisions when you do. You could simply declare god as a non-existent and invest your energies in future science's ability to answer origin questions.
Well it's not in my future plans.So no worries.
I m glad you are glad.Though supposing there is God indeed,his way of "thinking" is way more irrational than mine.
I certainly agree that a human is a much more rational proposal for an existent that can give purpose to this universe, compared to an omnigod. We can ask and answer questions. An omnigod by definition cannot have any questions, so I cannot perceive a purpose or need for it to exist.
For sure they would. You don't need to use a concept of God to commit crimes. Most crimes are done without any reference to such an entity. Im sure atheists and agnostics also commit crimes.
Doing a crime in Gods name is basically an assertion that you have some special deeper understanding of reality or knowledge or truth (assuming such a God as the origin of existence), as for because "they made me" that's irrelevant because they would have technically made everyone and everything. Its a moot point. It doesn't place one's opinion on higher ranking.
Wouldn't "the questioned" have to exist for us to question it?
If the universe = "All information", sure it may not be able to ask questions, but from it emerged things that can - us.
So the universes laws and principles contained the information neccesary to generate a conscious questioner within it.
We can and build the "All knowledge" from the "all information". In the sense that knowledge differs from information in that it is information ordered/structured and classified in a logical rationally associated way within the mind of a consciously aware being.
In essence, wouldnt an omnigod as the true reality, the collective sphere of answers, have a purpose - to be the object of observation and questioning by sentience that doesn't yet have all the answers or the whole truth. But can question, and rationalise and experiment with answers.
Well we are "negentropic" by definition.That is to say "Life" goes against the increasing entropy flow of the universe, the chaos, the disorder.
We as living things are very much rational, orderly, self controlled, self organizing and self regulated beings.
When our bodies skew off into irrationality and chaos we get ill and die and are no longer orderly living systems.
And I suspect the same is for our mind and thoughts. When they get severely irrational we end up either harming ourselves or others. As irrationality/chaos naturally erodes order/rationality.
So to circle back to the quote. I think if there is a God, his (or her - who knows) way of thinking is for sure both rational - creative, and irrational - destructive. You cannot have one without the other.
I think it's deeper that that. If you claim you are acting in accordance with gods will or instruction or 'revealed word,' then you will insist there is no 'crime' involved.
Exodus 22:18 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' is the BS verse that caused the death of many an accused innocent. Those who did such murder were convicted of no crime at the time.
Theists can also hurt you physically or mentally or economically for many other reasons they believe are fully sanctioned by their god. Your sexual preference, your blasphemy, your apostasy to mention but a few from a large list. Many Christian theists for example do indeed see some of the OT gods heinous acts as on a 'higher ranking' and certainly not criminal. They fully endorse such events as gods reaction to children who called his prophet Elisha 'baldy.':
Kings 2:23-24 He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead! And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.
No, because paradox will always be encountered. For example, you cannot reference 'nothing' as you need 'something' to do so, like the word 'nothing.' So 'nothing' has no existent even though we CAN reference the concept through the label 'nothing,' denoting the 'absence of something.' The existence of the god label or the god concept, is no evidence AT ALL for the existence of an actual god. Just like the labels pixie, unicorn or 'holy shit,' is no evidence that any of those have an existent either.
Quoting Benj96
Anything is possible Ben! I suppose! But for me, such musings only offer you a 'landing zone based on your own credence judgement.' YOU, I, WE can only assign a personal credence level to such musing as you are presenting here. I assign close to 0 credence to the idea that if I can imagine it then it has some modicum of existence. An image of my credence level for such a suggestion would be: :roll:
Other than that (2m:22s)...
Oh the irony. Because I feel humanity is as close to a "God" as any animal has ever come to evolutionarily. We wield the power of the atomic bomb, unfathomable knowledge in every discipline imaginable, stored in warehouse upon warehouse of servers around the globe, able to survive essentially all but the most hostile environments on earth. And soon to extend that to space itself.
We are everywhere on earth, omnipresent - all 8 billions of us, if not geographically than certainly in cyberspace. We are arguably the most successful of all of mother nature's species, able to offset our own genetic flaws through medicine, sustain ourselves longer and longer with every century that passes. Overcoming hurdles in every domain.
My question to you would be, if knowing humans are fundamentally competitive and can be reduced to mere survival at all costs, why give them each God like power? Would you enjoy observing the chaos and fight to the death?
And if we all had the same power wouldnt we be truly equal? Unlike the current state of affairs where the wealthy and political have much more authority and power than the impoverished, who can barely survive.
See below. If we all have god powers, no one has god powers or we all have god powers and wouldn't make much a difference. We would form "god societies" and form different norms, rules and laws that all revolve around our powers, but that's me being extremely anthrocentric.
I suspect most gods wouldn't even remain around. A great deal of gods would simply leave out of boredom, assuming they had the capacity to feel it. Most won't even interact the way humans do. I think most would be solitary and occupy different regions of the universe or exist outside of it entirely creating their own.
Quoting Benj96
Humans are equal in flesh and as an abiotic species. The same would hypothetically apply if we were all made gods with the same powers. Killing each other will either be more effective or not that effective at all.
Once god powers are given, they are no longer human. And most won't stay around to compete or participate in politics. I know I wouldn't. The narcissists would probably stay because they have nothing else to live for. That's assuming gods have the capacity to even develop flesh-brained disorders.
Unless you're talking about super-HUMAN powers? I still think even then most primitive humans will die off and kill each other, the super-humans will be more intelligent, less stupid and less competitive.
But more controversial - I would induce an enzyme in the wise to embrace FUN knowledge. Not killing all happiness by striving for certainty, arguing, logic and all that kind of meticulous bs. But rather the whats the 10 biggest towns in Mexico thrill one had as a child.
Would you have to erase money and wealth also then? As the whole system is based on an object of value that can be hoarded/accrued. You cannot have wealth without poverty, its what gives value to money (driven by fear/survival and competition).
Would we go back to a state of doing things for others not for money but out of compassion? Or love for our work.
Quoting Ansiktsburk
If severe pain occurs for lying in order to profit, but you've already abolished the monetary system above, then how could they profit? Money would have no value in a system where you can never be poor and can just stop, relax, be unproductive - as you know your home, food and water will be taken care of, why work? And why capitalise?
Quoting Ansiktsburk
So if everyone who was quote clever is induced to not seek out certainty, concrete facts and logic, what would happen to the cold, meticulous, sterile ans objective nature of science? Would you have a world where science is dead. Anyone who tries to do it just becomes super fun and "oh whatever anyways" about it.
I like the premise of your ideas. They sound noble and good willed in theory. However I think the outcomes in practice could be pretty disastrous if not even contradictory.
"Enforce meritocracy" sounds like a contradiction of terms. As does "induce embracing".
It sounds like "totalitarian/autocratic free will" which don't seem to go hand in hand.
Essentially, in summary, enslaved to doing right by others (merit) and forced/induced to only think in fun ways. Totally controlled in essence. No free will to be bad, selfish, or boring and thus no meaning to their opposites - good, selflessness and fun.
This sounds like an analogy for exactly what humans do anyways. Leave when they're bored, argue if they're narcisstic, choose introversion over extroversion sometimes, or create their own "delusional" or "highly eccentric" sense of reality through intense denial of the status quo/convention/norms.
I think if everyone was elevated to god like power, nothing would change. Just as if the universe expands at the same rate everywhere, nothing gets larger relative to anything else.
Because "Power" is a dynamic between the a). most powerful and B). the powerless. Power only has power if someone else doesn't have it.
So elevating everyone to god status, giving them all the ability to float, shapeshift, be immortal, etc. If everyone has these powers, sure the dynamic of physics and chemistry and biology would certainly be different, self identity would be different momentarily (if we are to ever forget what it was like to be human), but all in all interactions between gods would be much the same as if they had always remained human.
If everything changes equally for everyone, then nothing changes.
Enfore meritocracy is by no means a contradiction, remember I am God. My goal is not the pleasure for mothers of rich cultural and social captial to make offspring happy and seeking life fulfilment. There is a good portion of coercion and conformance in meritocracy. If you feel enslaved by being lazy and letting the others do the hard work its your funeral. Or rather, you lazy, you serve. Thats the choice you have. A fair race. And of course, everyone works office, hospital, factory hours.
But sure, the ones spoiled rotten by mothers that just want to see their offspring happy will, lets say, feel a decrease if own free will exploitation. Thats what happens when a guy with working class roots becomes God.
As in Iain M. Banks's Culture civilization, I take it?
Wouldnt that mean you are still ultimately God? If your potency overcomes all challenge?
That is true. Your merit is judged by others, thus you are coerced by convention to appeal or conform to the majority, ideally all.
Quoting Ansiktsburk
So from what I understand, you would correct the biases and prejudices that have been in place until now? Reform the system in an equilibrium where wealth is replaced by merit?
I like this. Those who show the most capability/promise to provide for all humanity ought to be empowered to do so, regardless of background.
But doesn't empowering someone on merit naturally lead to disequilibrium? To anyone who argues against them do you merely say "shhhh" or do you entertain their qualms?
No. If you arent omnipotent, omniscient etc then you arent God. Its possible to be extremely powerful but not omnipotent.
Of course, what "merit" is, would have to be defined and accepted. What a corntribution is and how valuable it is to society and mankind.
Abolish any and all ideas, concepts, histories of gods. Remove all idea of a superior being from the minds of all humans and replace it with the concept of self sufficiency and love for oneself and everyone else including the planet.
Then I would go back to my job of trying to teach common sense to teenagers. :wink:
OK, sure.
I'd get absolutely shitfaced, and no one could stop me. People would be like: "Hey God, whatsup", and I'd be like "hey dude, I'm high af".
What?
I know this is self-serving and egotistical, but so are the actions and decisions of the currently presiding god. If you can believe the scriptures.
In fact, there is a proof somewhere that anything anyone does, is self-serving and egotistical. Those acts of people that contradict this observation, can be shown that they are exchanging something really bad for something not as bad, so they are also self-serving and egotistical.