Question of Evil
May. 6th, 2008 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackIf you were the God, and all possible parallel universes existed side-by-side, what would you do? Would you delete most, or transform them into copies of the one where people were happiest? Or let them run?
To me, that thought experiment relates to several questions:
* The problem of evil "If God existed, and were omnipotent and good, why would he let there be bad things". If you can even conceive of God not reordering all his universes to be "best", that is one possible answer to the question. (Not that I think that's true, but it's possibly a rebuttal to the argument that "There are bad things, therefore God is at most two of good, omnipotent, and existing")
* A logical extension of local morality. People naturally care more for people close to them (both friends, and people similar to them, and people physically closer to them). To a greater or lesser extent depending on circumstance. This has bad effects, that far away tragedies can get ignored, but good effects, that people can choose to help some people close to them, even if this is a drop in the ocean compared to everything else, but a lot better than just freezing up. But if all possible parallel universes existed, it would make it obvious how every thing you chose to do was an essentially arbitrary decision about how people close to you matter more than everyone else,
To me, that thought experiment relates to several questions:
* The problem of evil "If God existed, and were omnipotent and good, why would he let there be bad things". If you can even conceive of God not reordering all his universes to be "best", that is one possible answer to the question. (Not that I think that's true, but it's possibly a rebuttal to the argument that "There are bad things, therefore God is at most two of good, omnipotent, and existing")
* A logical extension of local morality. People naturally care more for people close to them (both friends, and people similar to them, and people physically closer to them). To a greater or lesser extent depending on circumstance. This has bad effects, that far away tragedies can get ignored, but good effects, that people can choose to help some people close to them, even if this is a drop in the ocean compared to everything else, but a lot better than just freezing up. But if all possible parallel universes existed, it would make it obvious how every thing you chose to do was an essentially arbitrary decision about how people close to you matter more than everyone else,
no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 02:48 pm (UTC)I know what you mean. I think I was referencing in passing something I've wibbled about at more length elsewhere. But firstly, people plainly do feel like that, right or wrong.
Definitely expanding "us" as fast as possible is good. Both from a "he has human rights similarly to me" argument, and a "game theory, if we work together we both win" argument.
And something being natural isn't sufficient for it to be good, no: we've decided lots of things we do naturally suck. But I morality must be derived from what we think -- from what else could it be? (I need to rework some old posts that I no longer quite agree with, but things like http://cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com/62407.html)
That is, point #2 in the original post, is based on the idea that it might be ok to place people closer to you with more importance. And a metaphor for why.
Reflecting I see a lot of this is duplicating comments to hilarityallen's post, I'll go down there and look at those comments.