Comments on The Faith Heuristic: Are Atheists Trapped in a Simulation?

Of course, as I think you alluded to, least absurd...

2009-11-23T18:41:10.934-05:00

Of course, as I think you alluded to, least absurd world was blown out the water by quantum physics.

Also,
If God exists then the multiverse is false and God would not let us be the simulation of some alien.
is very sloppy thinking. You do not explicitly state that it has to be one of the human gods, more specifically one that is not a deceiver.

On that point, if God made the Devil then God made a deceiver therefore God IS a deceiver.

It is an interesting one to get your head around, ...

2009-11-23T17:52:40.368-05:00

It is an interesting one to get your head around, and I'll give it some thought before a bigger post, but just one error you made (I think):

The goal is to avoid being trapped in the ancestor simulation.

It's not a goal, especially if there were some way to find out the 'truth'. We are dealing with what is (OK, what appears to be) not with what we want it to be.

I have to say I find absolutely no intellectual worth in the Kalam Argument, but that's for another post.

Hi March, Wow, great comment. There is a lot of f...

2009-11-23T16:32:35.005-05:00

Hi March,

Wow, great comment. There is a lot of food for thought in that.

we can only experience and measure what our senses tell us. We can only assume our knowledge and memories are real and not pre-programmed. We must proceed on the basis of the best knowledge we have to hand.

That was the point I was making. Hopefully I credited Tyler Cowen. You could call it the Least Absurd Worldview argument. In the days of the Newtonian universe atheists argued that they had the Least Absurd worldview because it conformed almost completely to common sense. That began to change with the multiverse. It is clearly absurd so both atheists and Christians hold an absurd belief. But we can debate which one is more absurd. The ancestor simulation tilts the balance towards theism. Only theists can claim that the real world is almost certainly real.

I think the ancestor simulation does defeat the fine-tuning of the laws of physics. But I don't think that atheists improve their foothold by moving from "fine-tuned universe" to ancestor simulation. I see it as a step down, not up. The goal is to avoid being trapped in the ancestor simulation.

Now that I think about it, the ancestor simulation does not defeat Kalam Cosmological Argument. It only defeats the evidence in favor of the premise that the universe began to exist. That premise can still be defending in a priori terms by using real analysis.

Once again, great thoughts and I don't think anyone has truly wrapped their head around how the ancestor simulation changes the battle lines!

Nice use of the computer simulation model to show ...

2009-11-23T11:56:53.931-05:00

Nice use of the computer simulation model to show that it is actually more likely that we exist in a simulation rather than the 'real' world.

I often use the computer simulation as a model to show that virtually no matter what happens here I find it less likely that it was God than a change in the computer simulation we are running in.

It also allows for a debate on free will, on which I agree with the religious that atheists have to deny free will, which can get round any quantum arguments people have: http://paulforpm.blogspot.com/2009/06/free-will-in-religion.html

My take on the simulation 'problem' is that we can only experience and measure what our senses tell us. We can only assume our knowledge and memories are real and not pre-programmed. We must proceed on the basis of the best knowledge we have to hand. If at any point that knowledge changes then we adapt out reasoning at that time. The ideas behind the simulation are one for philosophers and, to an extent, physicists, not engineers, bankers or bakers.

To tell a parent their kid may be nothing more than a simulation may elicit a strong response but it may equally be met with an agreement and a rebuttal of "maybe so, but I will treat it as if it were real until I have some positive evidence that it is not." As I will with the real world. Simulation or not, it is all I know.

Unless someone changes my programming.

One other point about this, if you accept that it is more likely that we live in a simulation then the fine tuning argument is blown out the water. As is the something from nothing argument. We know absolutely nothing about the 'real' universe that this simulation is running in. That universe may be eternal, that universe maybe has its constants fixed by its 'real' physics. There is no argument for God that we can come up with in this universe that necessarily must be true of an external, 'real' universe.e

Glad to see someone else noticing the problem simu...

2009-11-21T08:42:22.346-05:00

Glad to see someone else noticing the problem simulation arguments (and I'd include multiverse arguments, which move towards simulation arguments) pose for atheism. Though I also find myself agreeing that, if we live in a simulation, atheism is false (deism or some form of theism is true).

Oddly, I'd take some of phane's criticism (the possibilities of religions other than Christianity being true, etc) to the following conclusion: At the very least, the simulation argument and related considerations make atheism the least likely view to be true, compared to deism/theism.

On the other hand, I also suspect that many of today's "atheists" are actually closet deists or weird types of theists anyway.

I see your argument, which is that world is like a...

2009-11-20T13:36:47.459-05:00

I see your argument, which is that world is like a physical rather than an electronic simulation. But Christian theology holds that the universe is stuff that is created out of nothing. It is new material. By contrast, simulations are created out of existing material.

But let's run with your line of reasoning. The world is just a physical computer. There is nothing deceptive about it because the Bible teaches about the physical and spiritual worlds, that first God existed, and then He made the physical world ex nihilo. Thus if Christianity is true out everyday understanding of the world around us is salvaged. If atheism is true then we almost certainly live in a simulation and our everyday understanding of the world is illusory.

It is true that there are many more options than Christianity and atheism. But regardless of what you believe you have to take one of them on faith, unless you can give an a priori reason to favor one of them. And speaking of a priori reasoning, let's turn to the ontological argument. (How do you like my segue?)

Ontological argument #1 The ontological argument is ridiculed in every philosophy 101 textbook so Christians learn to distance themselves from it if they want to be taken seriously. But modal logic has given new life to the ontological argument that defeats the ridicule. Modal ontological arguments are not (1) easily parodied, (2) logically invalid. Some of them, as atheists like Oppy have pointed out, are question-begging. They have one loaded premise that does the heavy lifting. But not all of them. See Maydole's temporal contingency argument in The Blackwell companion to Natural Theology.

Serious atheists take the ontological argument seriously. Do a search for it on amazon.com and you will see many book-length treatments just written in the last 5 years, and some by atheists. It has been quietly flourishing.

ontological argument #2 The ontological argument does not suffer from much of a gap problem because it proves more than a generic higher power, but an infinitely powerful and loving higher power. That basically means a theistic God.

But if you leap to atheism then you have to believ...

2009-11-20T01:36:47.190-05:00

But if you leap to atheism then you have to believe that you are likely a computer program. If you leap to Christianity then the world really is the way it appears.

I'm not digging this dichotomy, here. The Christian worldview seems very simulationist to me as well. To put it in a less-than-rigorous way, the Christian world is a computer game. Physical reality is an elaborate test of your spiritual skill, with lots of challenges in the form of various sins or diversions. You only get one life because God's a hardass that way. In the end, nearly everything that happens in the game is for nothing; it comes down to a binary win-or-lose at the end. Far from being "exactly as it seems," the overwhelming majority of things in the universe are completely pointless, and some really counterintuitive things are so important you can't do without them.

Besides, why are "atheist" and "Christian" the only options? Of all the possible things you might believe about the world beyond the physical, we've narrowed it down to one? Nevermind all the other religions that actually exist, that's an insignificant minority compared to all the things that could be right. And, since we don't have much in the ways of evidence...

except for the ontological argument.

You might be the only person who buys into the ontological argument I've ever met. Most people, religious or no, think there's something fishy about it. It's a bit of philosophical slight-of-hand that leaves you uncomfortable. It's like Curry's Paradox: "If this sentence is true, then God exists." Well... if that sentence were really true, I guess God would have to exist, wouldn't he? Wait... that's exactly what the sentence says! So it is true, and God does exist.

Anyhow, even if you accept the ontological argument, all it tells us is that there's something as awesome as possible, somewhere. I don't think the natural thing to do is to go from there to a benevolent-but-distant ghost who believes strongly in thought crime. At least, not without some steps in between.

Hi Phane, That's a really sharp criticism. Frankl...

2009-11-19T20:25:53.441-05:00

Hi Phane,

That's a really sharp criticism. Frankly I hadn't grappled with the radical skepticism that the ancestor simulation entails (for everyone, Christian and atheist). I know the concept has been floating around the internet for a while but it is new to me.

Instead I would put it this way. We can all set aside all evidential arguments for the existence of God* No matter what we believe it will be a leap without any evidential grounding. But if you leap to atheism then you have to believe that you are likely a computer program. If you leap to Christianity then the world really is the way it appears.

* except for the ontological argument. I doubt a simulation can alter the rules of logic. Note that the big criticisms against the ontological argument (parodies, logical flaws, question-begging) do not work against the most carefully devised ontological arguments based on modal logic. See the temporal contingency argument by Robert Maydole in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.

So... The Faith Heuristic: If you have a felt exp...

2009-11-19T19:35:35.005-05:00

So...

The Faith Heuristic: If you have a felt experience of God, and it was formed under circumstances in which your experiences are usually veridical (e.g. you were not drunk) then it is rational to conclude that God exists.

And...

Suppose atheism is true. The programmer of the simulation could make a godlike figure appear, work miracles, and do any other feat needed to convince people that God exists. Even the strongest miracles fail.

How can these both be right?
If there's no justification, or even possible justification, for the authenticity of any spiritual experience, how is it reasonable to conclude anything like that?

As Christians we know that the ability to hold rat...

2009-11-18T23:19:49.209-05:00

As Christians we know that the ability to hold rational beliefs is based on the work of the Spirit.

The Spirit of God gave us the Word of God. It would seem that everyone has access to the Word of God.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

However, we have to believe the word of God and our belief completes faith.

It would seem that the Spirit of God produced the Word of God working through the writters of Scripture. As a result, faith is a gift; however, without our believing the Word of God we canoot be saved.

Hi Zdennny, Informative comment and agree with th...

2009-11-18T16:23:11.586-05:00

Hi Zdennny,

Informative comment and agree with the first part. But I disagree about defending the resurrection. Think about it this way. An unregenerated man will never be able to appreciate the evidence for the resurrection. Our ability to see the truth is based on the work of the Holy Spirit. From a philosophical perspective, start with epistemology then move onto other areas. As Christians we know that the ability to hold rational beliefs is based on the work of the Spirit.

The argument is predicated on the fact that mankin...

2009-11-18T08:24:33.514-05:00

The argument is predicated on the fact that mankind requires faith in order to believe that their senses are informing their minds accurately about reality.

If you accept this premise, then you enter into the world evidence. While faith is the foundation of all knowledge, I do believe that the evidence of Christianity is overwhelming.

The only problem I have with the argumentation is that we have no way of knowing about the resurrection of Christ. You have to accept that your mind is accurately informing you about reality in order to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It would seem to me that our apologetic should seek to defend the resurrection of Christ rather than accept a philosophy that ultimately can be used to deny our knowledge of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.