At 11:49 PM 1/10/99 +0000, Nick wrote:
>I used to say that I was an atheist, but I've changed my mind and now
I doubt it, at least not in any sense of deity recognized by modern
>I'm just an agnostic. This is partly because of the possibility that
>our world is a simulation; the posthumans running the simulation
>could well be said to be gods.
>There is also the possibility
>that all possible worlds exist; then gods would exist since there are
>gods in some possible worlds. Or if the universe is spatially
>infinite, which it is on the simplest topology if it is open (which
>it seems to be) then random fluctuations should lead to the
>existence of godlike physical creatures somewhere (but would these
>be real gods?).
Again, I think this is an abuse of language. In an infinite universe there would be very powerful beings by that path; there could not (I think, but my set theory isn't remotely up to this) be a quantum fluctuation that yielded an infinite volitional entity coextensive with *all* those infinite worlds. And even with Gott-like (ha) closed timelike curves, I doubt that there could be a fluctuation that took the form of the logically earliest volitional entity that *preceded* itself and its own ontic context (unless it is the universe in toto).
Moreover, I suspect this line of thought is self-refuting: shouldn't there also be (1) an *infinite* number of distinct gods so produced; and (b) at least one catastrophic transcendental event, perhaps accidental, perhaps done by a Mad Mind, that obliterates all these infinite universes? Or would such obliteration, like a vacuum catastrophe, have to proceed from a center outward at the speed of light? If so, any god postulated as its cause is crucially limited, and fails the definition accepted by most (Western) theists.
>And there is the possibility that there might be a
>kind of neoplatonistic god, a "creative principle" which might
>explain why the world exists (though I think that looks highly
>problematic).
This sounds something like the array of current sub-theological representations of deity (as far as I know; I'm hardly an expert in gods) that is adduced by scientists such as, say, Paul Davies. I don't see how it makes sense as a proposition (so I guess I'm a noncognitivist in Max's terms, although it sounds like a nasty label to accept), but that might be a limitation of imagination.
Damien Broderick