this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
394 points (76.7% liked)
Memes
45719 readers
1057 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This argument conflates belief with religious practice. The core similarity of both beliefs is that the universe is intelligently designed. And you can believe in the idea of a God without participating in any kind of formal religious practice. That "most" religious belief is wrapped up in a particular religious tradition is ancillary.
Religion's weakest argument is the claim that the world was intelligently designed. When it so clearly isn't.
Simulation theory doesn't claim someone designed all this. They built a simulator where all this evolution and history happened, like emergent gameplay on steroids. It's not the same kind of "design" we're talking about.
Intelligent design is a broad, vague, and intensely mutable concept. It isn't helped by the fact that there's multiple kinds, with the pseudoscientific kind touted by the religious right in America and the more generic, very fucking old "teleological argument" which is also intelligent design at its core. To give a specific example of intelligent design philosophy that isn't directly tied to a belief in a deity as an active participant, you can look at the deists, who believed that the universe's fundamental laws were engineered by a kind of "clock maker" deity who left the universe running under its own principles but doesn't have a direct, guiding hand in individual events. This is still a form of "intelligent design" and closely corresponds to simulation theory. At this point, you are redefining terms to suite your argument. Also, you can't really say the world is or is not intelligently designed, as you have no evidence for either. The only truly "logical" position to hold for any of this is straight agnosticism.
The hypothesis of simulation does not address intelligence. Intelligence abstractly is something that exists inside the simulation, it may value nothing outside the simulation. You thesis is lacking evidence.
I think you mean "it may value nothing inside the simulation." Because what you wrote doesn't make any sense as it's written. In either case, my "thesis" is not a thesis. It's an observation of similarity. Both beliefs presume some kind of external motive force behind the universe's existence. I never made any argument about the intent or abstract values of whatever that thing may or may not be or how it perceives the universe it "created." I think the only thing lacking here is your reading comprehension skills, as you're clearly adding unfounded assumptions onto my observation independent of what was actually stated. Also, I posted that like a fucking month ago. Either you're necroing dead threads looking to pick a fight or whatever instance you're posting to fucked up its syncing with its federation.
The universe just getting created by an external force, and your phrasing that it is "intelligently designed" has no similarity. You are just escaping from what you had stated. You yourself assumed that the core similarity is intelligent design. There is nothing to observe here. The only one lacking in reading comprehension is you, or you are probably trying to find the little ounces of loopholes you think you can find because you're just so disappointed by your thirty-day-old opinion but you also just can't admit to it, or whatever else the situation may be.
Simulation theory does not share any core similarity with creationism. Just simulating a universe does not mean it is intelligently designed.
You're getting caught up on phrasing and nothing else. Let it go. "Intelligent design" as an ideology and describing something as "intelligently designed" are not the same thing. The core similarity is what I've already described. You want me to mean something beyond what I've stated because you're incapable of accepting what you read at face value. I have no interest in speaking further with someone without the intelligence to do something basic as understand the words they read.
They are different things, and I am not taking the phrasing in an ideological context. Something being intelligently designed and just being designed, are not the same thing either. Your previous reply elaborates the phrasing of yours that I quoted in a broader way that only you can come up with, because the phrasing simply had an entirely different meaning. I am also uninterested in having any discussion with somebody who throws up words on the internet, expects to be taken seriously, but is bereft of the mental competence to even phrase their words correctly.