Tuesday, 14 August 2007

We're All... Oh, Never Mind

God?

Dr. "Nick" Bostrom of Oxford University has come to the conclusion that "it is almost a mathematical certainty" that we are merely the constructs of some elaborate computer simulation-- or even a simulation inside a simulation inside a simulation and on and on like a set of Russian cyberdolls.

Perhaps, but like the materialist's idea that all reason and consciousness is merely the result of pointless chemical reactions, I can't help but wonder why, if he believes this to be true, Dr. Bostrom bothers to tell anyone.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being a deist, I've always thought God was sort of like a gardener; planting a seed and watching it grow, bloom and ultimately wilt away.

What I didn't count on was the prospect of an invisible green diamond hovering over my head convincing me its time for a pee

jayessell said...

As an unfalseafyable statement, discussion of it is meaningless.

****************

In one of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, Captain Picard once wondered if his universe was a simulation in a box on someones table.

The hapless recuring character engineer Reginald Barclay tried to exit the simulation by saying "End Program", when what he should have said was "Cue end theme, roll credits".

**********

Anonymous said...

Well, David, there's always a chance that someone could find the console commands.

No_clip, anyone?