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Comment by Vecr | Hacker News Reader

Okay, accepting these new criteria (actually somewhat reasonable, if you accept the universe has a creator), intentionality restricts the objects that are acceptable, but if you accept extended Occam's priors that have the capability to contain God [0], then every "object" that meets the requirements and is simpler than God is a better explanation.

[0]: Not the same as the previously mentioned simplicity priors, as you brought up Occam's you must think God fits into logic.

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I accept the universe has a cause because of the logic I presented earlier. Humans have no reason to believe there is existence without cause (if you can find a single example of something being created without a cause, you would change the course of human history!)

You deleted the other comment I was trying to respond to, but I'm interested in a response to the idea that an "object" that meets all the requirements you've given could be simpler than God, and therefore more likely by Occam priors.

Maybe the name is what you're hung up on? Whatever this simpler thing is would still need to be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, possess intentionality, and decision-making capabilities.

Yes? But I assume you aren't arguing for God-as-in-any-object-or-idea-that-meets-a-list-of-criteria, I assume you're arguing for God. God that's described in any book I've read appears to have a lot of complexity, and I don't think it's likely that nothing else that would meet the criteria would be simpler.

Ah, great question. OK, if there is a "God" explanation for creation and its a logically sound argument, then how do we know who or what this God is? Many religions claim to know, but how we can differentiate them and use logic, reason, science, etc to find this one true God. Is that the question you're after?

Not exactly, my argument there was that there would be a huge number of individually more likely (due to being simpler) candidate objects for your criteria, that in combination entirely swamp every conception of God that has ever been written down in any book anywhere.

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