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Comment by tathougies | Hacker News Reader

My favorite is the new 'scientific' idea that the universe is a simulation. It's like... if the universe is a simulation, then what are the simulators? It's buck passing all the way down.

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It’s kind of hilarious if one was to regard primitive religion as a sort of science to explain natural phenomena. Zeus throwing thunderbolts causes storms and all that. Except in the modern world, in reaction to technology, to the idea of VR, computer programs, digital simulation, modern man goes and says “aha! If we can build that, why can’t the gods do the same?” So the simulation argument can become a sort of proto-religion (if taken seriously) in response to man-made phenomena.

I don't see how it can be not religious if taken seriously. If there's a simulator, there must be someone who programmed it. That someone is, functionally, God, who created the universe. There isn't a "religion" in the sense of having commandments or an organized church, but it says that God is objectively there - he really exists, and he created this universe.

I do find it humorous (in a pathetic way) that scientific atheists have wound up at this place.

If you think that th essential characteristic of God is being a creator, and the fact that religions usually attribute a moral-arbitration role to God is incidental, then, sure, the creator of a simulation would inherently be a God.

OTOH, if the essential characteristic of God is that His will is equivalent to moral correctness, then a simulation creator doesn't necessarily fit the bill.

Fair point, though I thought that "creator who objectively exists" should be sufficiently shocking to atheists who believe we're in a simulator.

But then, if this creator of the simulator is there, can he (or whatever pronoun you wish) use something like a debugger to change things within the simulation? Behold, miracles now fit into the atheist view. Could this creator of the simulator send messages into the simulation? Now you've got at least the possibility of moral law given by the creator.

It's really mind-boggling to me that atheists are going down this path.

This is like saying "if the universe began with the Big Bang, then what came before it?" – it's not buck-passing if you define 'simulation' in a falsifiable way.

> it's not buck-passing if you define 'simulation' in a falsifiable way.

Okay, then define simulation in a falsifiable way, and we'll talk. The truth of the matter is, no one has defined this in a falsifiable way, so your statement is like saying 'religion is not buck-passing if you define God in a falsifiable way'. Without this falsifiable way you claim, it requires a belief in the transcendent.

> then what are the simulators?

The universe itself? It would be extremely weird, but modern physics is extremely weird.

Wow. You've independently come up with a stronger version of the uncaused cause argument, one of the many arguments Aquinas gives for the Christian God. Congratulations!

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