Arguments against Design (General)

by dhw, Friday, August 14, 2009, 12:03 (5578 days ago) @ BBella

BBella: Think about it...if you were a UI, why would you just create and sit back and watch when you obviously have the ability to create and experience every creation as it happens simultaneously! - This is somewhat akin to writing plays and fiction: the writer experiences in his mind what his characters go through, and yet at the same time he's detached and able to watch them. You seem to be going one step further and saying that the UI undergoes the experiences physically. Christians would probably welcome the concept in terms of Christ/God suffering on the cross, but I wonder if they would be equally at home with Christ/God staggering home on a Saturday night, vomiting all over the living-room carpet, and then stabbing his wife in the chest with a carving knife. And I wonder if God would also enjoy being the wife at the same time. I'd have thought that by now he'd have had enough of the pain he keeps inflicting on himself. On the other hand, you're right, it would also be pretty boring just to watch the same old shows. You will gather that I continue to have trouble with the whole concept, but maybe I still haven't really grasped it. - In response to my question about free will, you wrote: "Even if we do have so much free will, or have none, still we are all fairly happy with what we have to be entertained with as long as no one is harming us. As long as there are just so many elements in our play pen then we can only have so much free will." - That is not quite what I meant. It's not the limitation of materials available to us, but what we do with those materials that relates to free will. If we are simply part of the UI, which is inside us and directing us, none of our decisions are ours and even our belief that we are real as individuals is an illusion. In fact, this ties in with the whole subject of identity, of which will and morality ... now being discussed on The Human Animal thread ... are just a part. It's a broad subject, and perhaps we should start a separate thread on it.